The Life of M

 First off: apologies for the lull. When life gets busy, it gets too busy to post! We've officially been living in NL for a full year. I'm sure I'll post a rundown of all the stuff we've learned soon.

Many of my friends and some of my family haven't met our fabulous little 9 month old, so I thought I'd tell a bit about her.

M is seriously mellow. We thought that G was an easy-going kid, but M is even more so. I don't know if I want to have any more kids, since these two have been so great (especially in the sleeping department). The first 9 months of her life have flown by.

M loves her sister. For bathtime, they start off together, then G gets time on her own to splash and play, and often M will come and watch her, pulling herself up on the side of the tub, a new skill she's been perfecting lately. G looks at her and she looks at G and has this ridiculously cute belly laugh. 

She even puts up with being dressed up. 

M loves food. She eats with gusto and has gone from purees to chunks of food in less then a month. She has loved everything we've given her so far. 

Even a bit of corn on the cob.

She is way more "mouthy" then G ever was. I have to be so careful about what's on my floor, since she eats everything she can get her little hands on! 

M is super-smiley. Anytime I have her out and about in the carrier, she always smiles for strangers. She happily goes from person to person in a group, with a grin for each of them. While G was already a talker by this age, M is a bit more quiet, but always observing with wide eyes. 

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. 

2010, Quite the Year

As we come to the end of 2010, I can't believe how much has changed this year.

At the start of this year, we were feeling like we would be moving in August to whoever accepted Paul into a PhD program. He had applied at 10 different schools, so we were pretty optimistic. It was a difficult time as the rejection letters started coming in. We had heard from almost everyone and started making alternate plans - to stay in Winnipeg, to travel, for Paul to find some temporary work -  when we finally heard from Memorial University in May. We went from "we're likely staying" to "we're definitely moving to St. John's" within the span of a week. It was an overwhelming time!
In the midst of this, we decided we wanted to have another child - a sibling for G that was close to her age. I assumed that it might take some time, but pretty much the moment we even considered trying, I was pregnant. We were (and are) thrilled, but in the future, I may plan a bit better then December!

If I could choose a word to describe 2010, it would be bittersweet. Leaving our friends and our church in Winnipeg was incredibly hard and emotional. Selling all our stuff (except what would fit in 11 boxes and 5 suitcases) was very hard, but also very freeing. It was painful to let go of our books, and those are the possessions I miss the most. We had brought together our two libraries when we got married, and had built it up over the past 6 years to over 300 books. We kept about 60.
I left my job of the past seven years with the library to move to St. John's. It was difficult to do, but it was a decision I had made years earlier when Paul started to pursue graduate work - so it's not a decision I regret, but I do miss the work and my co-workers.

Of course, this year also had the death of my grandfather, which I wrote about on this blog. I continue to mourn him, especially at Christmastime. One of the Sufjan Stevens Christmas songs that we play often this season has a line "Call your Grandma on the phone, if she's living all alone" and this year it made me cry. I have gone from three living grandparents to one in a very short time. 

In the "sweet" part of bittersweet, the birth of M was a wonderful event and as I wrote earlier, ended up having perfect timing. Being pregnant and now having a newborn has helped in fostering new friendships in St. John's. I went to the drop-in gym last week and two moms were very excited to see me with the new baby.   It has also been sweet to see the temperature in the prairies dip below -20C, while we were still sitting at a balmy +10C!
We have also found that God has been amazing at providing for us - we were shorter on money then we expected when we moved here, and somehow there were multiple small blessings to get us through. From finding a perfect apartment to our caretaker suddenly showing up with heaps of clothing for G to unexpected funds from various sources to our new church being extremely welcoming and friendly, we are in awe of how God provides and gives us more then we need.

And now, on to 2011, hopefully more new friendships in our new city, raising two girls and hopefully buying a car (and some freedom) soon.

Insecurities

Wednesdays have become my favourite days. G and I go to this playgroup downtown. It's a short bus ride away and when we arrive, the staff greet both of us by name. We go into the room, which is filled with toys and crafts and lined on two sides with comfy benches. G is in LOVE with a stuffed dog and hippo that are bigger then her, so they always get first hugs. I am greeted by the smell of coffee and I pour myself a cup, heaping it full of sugar and cream, it's not that great quality, but it wakes me up and warms me. G happily plays - mostly by herself, sometimes interacting with other kids. I am free to chat with other caregivers (moms, dads, grandparents, nannies) and the staff. They ask me how I am, how the pregnancy is going. I am slowly getting to know names - kids names come easily, since they're always being said - other names are starting to become familiar too.
Many in this group are newcomers either to Canada, or just to St. John's like me. The room is warm and inviting, the talk casual and I never feel like I'm interrupting a friendship group's conversation by joining in. I'm always a little nervous at first, and tired from the lack of sleep the night before, but as more people become familiar, it is more and more comforting.
Making friends from scratch is hard and slow work. I am insecure that I'll come across as desperate, that I'll be forcing myself where I'm not wanted, that people have plenty of friends, so they won't need me. Those feelings are hard to fight. It's hard to say more then a simple "hi" sometimes - especially at the drop-in gym on Tuesdays.
But, on Wednesdays, I feel secure. I continue conversations that started last week, I remember faces and names and I am hopeful that I can build some friendships out of this.

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.