I’ve actually got stacks of stuff to write about; I’m in a back log of posts. But for some reason haven’t had much time to get on here. So I’ll start at the beginning and work my way through.

Two Fridays ago, Mark and I had a date night for the first time since we moved in March and went to Kingfest. I was primarily interested in going to see Sloan for the first time since I left for the UK, but about my 6th time seeing them in concert (I can’t remember how many times it’s been).

I don’t really like going to see bands I actually really like in a festival setting – it’s a different audience, many people there won’t know their music intimately, bands often do different sets than they would do in a more intimate venue. But this turned out to be pretty intimate, despite being a festival – crowd turnout was pretty low, Chris Murphy came out as an audience member for the Trews, Jay Ferguson watched Joel Plaskett’s set from the barriers at the side. And we could side on a blanket in the field away from the few rowdy ones and see them just fine.

I think the festival got better turn out on Saturday and Sunday, but Friday’s low-key-ness was great for a pregnant lady who was tired from a long working week.

I knicked the pictures below from someone else, I fully admit (they were in a public space not copyrighted so what the hell) – but I could have taken them myself if I had remembered the camera. There are more copyrighted photos here.

And Sloan are still cute as ever and put on a consistently good rock and roll show – nothing changed there. Have pretty much grown up with them – some of them have kids and spouses too now.

I’ve been in kind of a blogging funk (not much else to talk about other than kid-related stuff, which I try to leave on the other blog), while at the same time being sort of busy with Mark’s mum and step-dad visiting for almost 3 weeks.

We’ve tried to balance working full time with keeping them entertained, so weekends have been pretty booked up with trips to Ottawa, Niagara Falls, seeing family (of mine and of theirs). At the same time they seem to be completely uninterested in doing any sightseeing, which has also been challenging. I’m not quite sure what the point of travelling is if you don’t actually want to do or see anything when you get there. I appreciate that they came to see Oliver etc. but I still don’t get it.

The good thing about them coming was that it inspired us to change the spare bedroom from a former girls’ bedroom with glow in the dark stars and stickers everywhere with horrible bright yellow painted walls into something nice and neutral. I’ll have to take photos when they vacate the premises, but the room looks a lot better, even if I can not yet afford to change the starry curtains. And will be a good neutral base for another nursery. Mark did a lot of quick work painting and patching holes in the wall.

Mark has also recently had a structural engineer come round to tell him that yes, it would be technically possible for us to raise the pitch of the roof, which is a fairly common thing to do to improve a bungalow. He met a neighbour that has just moved out of our area who is a contractor, who has put him in touch with the right people. Next step is to get some architectural drawings done, which will be for the whole house, for all the changes we’d like to make (our ensuite is a big priority for me). And then of course we have to look at the finances, to see if big changes to the house to improve it and increase its value actually make a lot of sense. ‘Cause it might make more sense just to demolish it instead. We’ll see. It’s going to be a long process.

Tomorrow night Mark and I are going to Kingfest to see Sloan, which is exciting for a date night, but also slightly terrifying. Feeling-ancient pregnant woman going to outdoor festival with large crowds and big speakers. Good times! I would have liked to have taken Oliver out to it on Saturday and/or Sunday as well, but we’re going to be busy with the in-law’s last weekend here.

No plans for Canada Day yet, but greatly anticipating a mid-July trip to New York City (my first visit) to meet up with Maria and Joel and new daughter Eleni (who we used to hang out with in London and now live in Pennsylvania), and Emma and Mark from Wales. As a bonus it’s the first time I’ve been allowed to take holiday since I started here 6 months ago!

And the weekend after that, a giant housewarming/my 30th birthday party at our house…

Whew. With all that, I think I don’t need to post for 2 months now.

I’m glad this isn’t my first pregnancy, otherwise I’d be a mess and wanting to switch doctors. It took me literally 20 phone calls to reach a receptionist at my obstetrician’s office last week. I was calling a few times a day, and each time it would go to a machine. And after I left a message and didn’t get a return phone call, I knew that was an exercise in futility. Out of curiosity, I ended up on a ‘rate my MD’ website and read some pretty nasty stuff about my doctor. I think I will be fine with her – the one time I have seen her, she was nice, and acted fast (which I appreciated as I had to get to work; other people would be upset by this). But if I was having complications, or even just experiencing the general unknowns of pregnancy number one, I think I’d be freaking out.

No time to think about that stuff anyway, we’ve been rather busy. Mark’s mum and step dad came over from Blighty on the 8th, and we’ve tried to show them some of Ontario while still working full time and running after Oliver (just slightly challenging).

No, I promise I didn’t try to push him over the Falls:
Visiting Ottawa; Grandma Brenda (Mark’s mum) and Great Grandma Fitton (my maternal grandmother):
His new obsession is birds; that’s what they were looking at (my grandmother has an active bird feeder):

Stuffing his face on my grandmother’s excellent bbq’d ribs, and rice and all sorts (actually he unusually just picked at it; the rest of us really stuffed our faces):

I remember, when I look at this photo, that I never blog enough about how much he changes all the time – how good he is at using utensils now, how he has a love/hate relationship with his high chair (if he’s in it, food is coming, but he hates being tied down and I think he wants a normal chair). Or how he invents games lately, like one where he peers at me from around the coffee table and tries to get me to chase him.

I enjoy how active he is. I always said, when I worked front line in social services (particularly in developmental disabilities), that it was always easier to work with the men than the women. The men would be up for activities, would get on with the task. The women would be whiny and slow. Yes, I am making generalizations, but I am aware I also fit the bill, being extremely whiny and slow!

So this is the positive thing about having another boy. Yes, the scan says it’s another boy. Mark says he works with someone who thought they were having a boy on the scan, and the technician turned out to be wrong. But, I thought it was a boy, I am sure it’s a boy. Especially as I said if it was a girl, we probably definitely most likely would not have anymore as I hate pregnancy, labour, newborn days (e.g. just about everything), too much.

A boy means we don’t really need to buy anything (mental note: start making Oliver wear bibs again to protect against stainage). A boy means, for some reason, names are easier to come up with. And a boy means we’ll know pretty much what to expect but for personality differences.

But it would have been nice, yesterday, to have bought pink dresses on clearance at the Superstore rather than blue sleepers! (okay, so we got number 2 a couple of new things; if we don’t, he’s going to have a complex big time)

(Big congrats to Lisa and Paul and big brother Jack, as they are needing those pink dresses with the arrival today of Mia Yoshiko!)

I had a day at home with Oliver this week, due to another bout of conjunctivitis/pinkeye. He was fine, except for the gunk in his eye – which means we can’t ditch him at daycare like normal! So I spent an exhausting day entertaining him, therefore reinforcing my belief that working in public policy and program management is a hell of a lot easier than looking after a toddler. For some reason, he insisted on wearing his raincoat and a winter hat at one point. I still don’t know if he’s learned to play dress up, or if he was just cold…

This past week has seen some not so nice firsts – first episodes of parents’ being covered in child’s blood. Earlier in the week a face plant on some floor tiles was his first bloody nose. Last night was even worse – he leaned forward in my lap as we were looking at a book, he put his weight on the book, the book fell to the floor, and his face smashed in to the coffee table. Teeth marks in table, teeth (I think) came through part of lip to meet table. Blood everywhere. Poor kid. Fat lip today.

Mark’s mum and step-dad are about to touch down at Pearson for a long visit, and Oliver is going to be able get reaquinted with his other grandma, which is good. I’m not necessarily looking forward to road trips to Niagara Falls and Ottawa, though, as he’s super grumpy in his car seat these days. And hates his pushchair. I am really tempted to get a leash.

On the bump front, Wednesday was the big scan. There’s a conspiracy, you know, that I should not be allowed to know what sort of child I am having. For Oliver, it was impossible as both hospitals I received care at had a policy of not letting parents know. (Okay, I could have paid for a 3d scan, but I don’t really know why I didn’t). This time, I fully expected to find out on Wednesday. Except the clinic has a policy of not telling you in person, but instead putting it in a report to your obsetrician. They told me the report should reach her office in a couple of days. I called just now – office is closed. Figures. I have to go back for a follow up in 2 weeks, as they couldn’t get good enough heart definition – exactly what happened last time with Oliver.

The good thing about the clinic? A free CD with copies of scans for you to keep. So here is the unknown number 2:

ps – the ticker says it’s only 20 more weeks till I can have a nice strong margarita. In my desperation for yummy drinks and feeling totally bummed to have another summer without really enjoying frozen goodness, I have taken to ordering expensive virgin cocktails and purchasing 0.5% alcohol coolers from the grocery store – sad but true…

We’ve been lucky enough to inherit some pretty nice planting in the flower beds around the front of the house, and whoever did it really did a nice job. Not too formal, interesting kinds of plants, and different things have come out at different times. First was the tulips, which are long gone. Then the shrubbery started to come up, and almost every day there is a new flower (lately the irises) or something new to look at. I’m pretty impressed.



Around the back, there isn’t much planting, but there is the main pond (a natural water feature, a tributary of a river) which has been pretty untouched – just in its natural state. There is a small stagnant pond that was put in closer to the house – it’s the frog pond. It’s mucky and features giant frogs. The bigger pond has turtles, geese and ducks. There are some other very colourful birds, bright yellow and red cardinals. Sometimes a heron stops in or just flies over. We’ve also had rabbits and squirrels. All of this is fine, good even – it’s sort of like a wildlife oasis back there, and Piper gets entertained by it all.

Except this morning. This morning there was a coyote out there. I think. Or a wolf? More likely a coyote. Probably not just someone’s dog running loose. Sort of freaked me out. Realized the cat probably should start being an indoor cat. I mean, I’m not a fan of the cat but I wouldn’t really like to see it gutted by a wild creature.

When Oliver wakes up (on weekends he likes to take 3 hour morning naps – he’s like a teenager), we’re going to hit a neighbour’s moving sale, do a bit of shopping, and then head over to my parents’ house to splash in a kiddie pool. Super hot again today. Mark, unusally, is working most of the weekend, so I am trying to find ways to entertain the kid while simulatenously doing stuff around the house before Mark’s mum and stepdad arrive on Friday… eek, a lot to do…

On top of the differences in care between first and second pregnancies, there are also the basic physiological differences. I knew that I was going to ‘show’ sooner than last time. What I didn’t expect was exactly how fast it would be. I’m 18 weeks now. Last time, at 18 weeks, we got married. I had bought a dress with a ‘room for growth’ option, lace up detail on the back, but I didn’t really end up needing it. Things were still pretty soft in the tummy region. This time at 18 weeks? Someone actually offered me their seat on the subway yesterday! I was shocked. And things are definitely not so soft, and a lot more bump-like. It probably doesn’t help that I started off with more of a tummy than last time (and anti-nausea medication means I’ve stopped losing weight, damnit!).

Last night on the way home, I was driving through a pretty major thunderstorm, which meant that traffic was super slow. It took me ages to get to Oliver’s daycare, and he gets pretty cranky at that time when he’s hungry. So I made an executive decision that an emergency McDonald’s intervention was necessary, particularly as Mark was working late and it was just me and him for dinner. He was HILARIOUS at dinner. I had to keep reminding myself that he’s only 17 months old. He insisted on having the drink, a medium sized Sprite which was actually about as big as his head, on his tray. He was like straining to lift it to his mouth and use the straw, but he’s into asserting his independence lately and he was determined to do it. And he somehow learned to dunk his chicken nuggets in ketchup. I don’t even think he’s had ketchup before, but letting him try it out was a riot.

We’re actually very lucky (like most things to do with him) that he still loves his food and hasn’t turned into a really picky eater (yet…). They rave about him at daycare – ‘he’s such a good eater!’ – and apparently he’s normally last at the table. When we were there for his performance, many other parents were literally begging their kids to eat a bit of pizza. Oliver was chowing down on pizza, chicken, vegetables, and more. The communication notes often come home with ’4 servings of this’ and ’3 servings of this’ written on them. The only thing they ever wrote to say he’s refused has been cauliflower – which he pretty much never gets at home as I don’t like it.

And how good he’s always been (with sleeping through the night, with being happy to go out in public or go shopping, with eating, etc.) – it probably means that I due to have a devil child. Can’t wait.