Space invasion.

Found out that despite his choice to leave F and I completely and be totally uninvolved with us, F's bio-dad is playing cyber-stalker with my twitter account, and likely here as well, so...

Good-bye.

Off to seek greener (aka non-public) pastures for this blog.

I won! I won!

On a whim, while reading @phdinparenting's blog, I entered her contest to win a Bravado Nursing bra, because I desperately need a new bra (seriously - I'm pretty sure they used to be higher than my floating ribs), but really really can't afford one right now given that winter boot season will be upon us soon.

Never thought I'd win. I never win anything.

But win it I did!

I am SO buying a lotto ticket on my way home tonight, 'cuz this never happens.
Beyond thrilled. I might even have to change my profile write-up, because now I can no longer claim 'stupidly unlucky'.

And yes - it's 'just a bra', not a million dollars, but a free bra is still a lot more than I had 2 hrs ago.

Happily single? That doesn't sound right....

And yet...

Here I am, contemplating what direction to go in the next few years; what school to send F to, in which language even, where to live on a provincial (that's like a state, to you 'merican readers) level, what jobs to apply for, and if offered, which to accept...

And I'm doing it all by myself.

This brings two thoughts to mind:

Thank gawd

and

Ohmygawd

It's amazing how lovely it is to be unencumbered by a partner when it comes to such decisions. I can make the best decision for the boo and I without worrying how the higher taxation in Quebec would affect my partner, or if boo's anglo father would prefer to be able to help his kid out with his homework. This is wonderful.

That said - it's all on my shoulders. Eep. If I make the wrong decision for us, then it's all mine to own and wear. If F winds up unable to spell in English because I sent him to all-French school, or unable to ride a bike because we never moved out of downtown where he couldn't easily learn to ride... it's all on me. This is not so wonderful.

But I'll still take this over having to consider someone who, at least in my experience, will not see it through to the end anyhow. (sorry about that - a wee bit of bitterness does occasionally pop out at the most unexpected of times.)

And I'll still take this over having to do even MORE laundry because despite working full time, moms are statistically still responsible for FAR more than their fair share of the housework.

And I'll still take this over even the most supportive and wonderful of men (because they do apparently exist - they're simply all snapped up already), because to give myself and my freedom up to another relationship right now seems very much like going to prison, regardless of how minimum security it might be.

I'll take the responsibility, because with it comes choice, freedom, confidence in my self, and all of F's daily hugs.

Take a deep breath...

Forgive me readers, for I have lapsed. It has been a few weeks since my last blog, but I swear, I've been supernaturally busy - not ignoring you!

Being back at work is starting to kick my ass a little. I'm finding less patience with the boo (a.k.a. F) when he wants to run around in the morning, instead of PUTTING ON HIS DAMNED PANTS. I can't really blame him - he's a skinny little bugger (has always been on the very low end of the percentile range for normal weight) and they all fall off him, making walking even more difficult (as if it needed to be.) But it does make getting out the door on time a little stressful. I do feel awesome guilt when I scold him or use a harsh tone with him for flipping over YET AGAIN instead of lying still though, so that's ok, right?

The weeks have been going by in something of a blur. I can't quite believe this is my life now, for the next 70million years: wake up (too early), get self and F dressed and fed while attempting to smile at least twice and not to yell the WHOLE time, rush to daycare then work ignoring pouting and whinging from boo at being left YET AGAIN (“you bitch” [you know I'm right - it's what he's thinking]), work all day, rush to daycare and then home for dinner (which is hopefully planned for and leftover-related because my energy is not stretching to prepping a whole new meal at this point in the day), eat - sometimes with a friend who comes over since I can no longer leave the house except to work (sob), wash boo, read him a few stories (thankfully he likes to zoom through books - no analysis of why the phone is a rotary and the bowl full of mush is left out all night is necessary, as far as he is concerned), nurse and sing him to sleep, then tidy up dinner dishes, make lunch for work tomorrow, tidy up living spaces, spend 15 minutes trying to read 3 hrs worth of blogposts, facebook updates, and tweets, eat some horridly fattening snack and feel great shame, shower if I can't bear the idea of sharing one with boo in the morning, then collapse into bed. Lather rinse repeat. Ad nauseum.

Seriously?

That just sucks. Even writing it sucks. Reading it probably really sucks because that was the run-on sentence to end all run-on sentences.

And yet - while I miss having free time to spend with friends OUT of the house, and I lament the loss of lazy slow mornings with F (we're both early risers - him earlier than I, of course, but morning is really our time to shine), it's not so bad, really. Maybe it's the breastfeeding hormones still affecting my brain, or maybe it's just getting to sneak into daycare at the end of the day and watch my brilliant son walk around talking and checking stuff out for a minute before he notices me, but as much as I am horrified at this new reality, I am also strangely very much okay with it. Would I prefer to be home with F? Kinda (but not always – especially as he grows more autonomous [read: challenging]). Am I exhausted? Definitely (but probably no less tired than someone who has a partner ‘helping out’ – more to come on that in the next little while). But reality is what it is, and since my nature is to be relatively optimistic (while concurrently dreading and planning for disaster), I’ve decided that this one is pretty damned good.

My son is happy and healthy. I am happy and relatively healthy. And we squeezed in an impromptu trip to the park yesterday after work, where they had just combed the sand, making it super soft and highly interesting to walk on. What more could you want, really?

TUCKs make for bad sleep.

I routinely wake up grumbling at the a--hole drunk kids outside my building - especially on weekends. This is one of the less charming aspects of living right downtown.

Last night was no exception. Around 12:30 I was woken from a blissfully deep sleep by someone making a horrifically loud and constant buzzing noise. After lying there cursing the jerks who would do this to me on a freakin' work week night for a while, I realized that it wasn't stopping. Nor was it coming from outside.

Whoops. Fire alarm.

Ok. Assessment time. Living above a commercial property as I do, drunk kids often find it hilarious to pull the fire alarm in the store, to watch the hundreds of residents come streaming out in their nightclothes. This happens on a fairly regular basis - at least twice a year, in my estimation. So... fire alarm... middle of the night... no smoke smell... I'm thinkin' "false alarm, again." But, as it's a Monday night, and I do have a child I'm responsible for... Just in case, I decided to get my butt dressed (and yeah - I went to bed naked, for the first time in a year. Awesome timing to start that up again.) Threw on clothes, went pee, and put on some shoes, the whole time trying to hold my hands over my ears because of the ear-piercingly loud and non-stop shrieking coming from the alarm in the hallway. Now - keep in mind, it's been about 10 minutes or so since the alarm started, and I haven't mentioned my son yet. This is because he is SLEEPING THROUGH IT! Yes, that's right - my child who wakes up if I open his door a crack to check on him, or if his sound machine turns off abruptly (waves are nice, don't ya know), is blissfully unaware that our building might be going up in flames.

I finally gather up a sweater and socks for him, and throw on my ringsling to carry him, and grabbed him from his slumber and his crib. He looked at me as if to say 'wtf, mum?' as I picked him up, and hurried him past the alarm in the hall, and we started down the stairs, where I met up with friend P who lives downstairs with friend L. He was, very kindly, coming up to see if we needed help getting out because... wait for it... IT'S AN ACTUAL, HONEST TO GOODNESS FIRE, PEOPLE!!!

As soon as I hear this news, I start lamenting that I was way too sleepy to think of bringing my purse, which holds an emergency diaper, and the beloved truck book. But we're rushing now, so there's nothing I can do other than hope he doesn't poop.

We scurry outside - F in P's arms, looking back at me confusedly, and seeming none too impressed with this interruption from his peaceful slumber, until he spots.... the TUCKS!!!!! Pretty, shiny, red and white tucks, with lights flashing all over them. And there are not one, not two, but THREE tucks - right there! In front of our building! Could this get ANY better??

Suffice it to say - my son is thrilled that there is a fire. He is beyond thrilled. He may plotz.

Y'see... My son is all about trucks these days. He rotates between calling them all tractors (TACK-terrrrrr) and trucks (TUCK!), but regardless of their name, they are beyond awesome at the moment. He rejoices in the fact that the street beside ours is being torn up this summer - there are tack-terrrrs galore, and they're RIGHT THERE BESIDE HIM! But this... THIS... is something truly special, and he knows it.

An hour later, still outside, he is no less interested in the tucks. His mother (aka me) however is wilting. It's cold, it's late, and there's no news about how long we'll be out of our homes. L and her daughter and F and I decide a little walk to the gas station for provisions is required. Luckily, L is far smarter than I in a crisis, and she brought her purse - with money, and everything!

We realize on the way there that we may not get back into our homes this night at all, at which point I really start worrying about the whole pooping in the one and only diaper we currently have, so we both decide to call friends to find potential places to crash. As soon as that's done, P calls from his survey spot across the street from our building - they're letting people back in!

Woohoo!! Three massive cheers for fire codes and living in a new-ish building!! Yes, there was a fire, and yes that apartment is gutted, however we are cleared to go back into our places anyhow!

Of course - that's when the fun really starts: attempting to get a very tired, very excited one year old, who has been pointing at and chattering about TUCKS for almost 2 hours back to sleep. hahahahahahhahahahahahahahaah. Yeah. Who knew someone could wake up 5 times in the span of 2.5 hours?


Oh. So. Tired.

Bad Tucks.

You mean I have to do it again?

Didn't I just write something?

You mean I'm supposed to do this on a regular basis?

Shit.
(Yes, I swore. I do it a lot. Sue me. [But don't really, because there's no point. Remember, I'm a single mom - my assets are called 'dry wit' and 'organizational wizardry'.])

I would venture a guess that if you are looking for a daily blog from yours truly, you will be fabulously disappointed. I just can't spend that much of my work day not working. And I'm sorry, but once I'm home with the boo (a.k.a. F), I'm not sitting down for more than a 140 character tweet. Time is simply too precious.
But I will do my very best to come here and tell you some inanity that you probably don't care about at all, as often as I can get away with.

Today's issue (aside from the above): whether or not to attend an outdoor concert tonight with F... I'm pretty sure I've decided to miss it (for the reasons I give far more information about than anyone could possibly want, below), but knowing me, there are at least 2 or 3 more mind-changes to go through before I settle on a final decision.

You see - F has finally, FINALLY, settled into a good sleep pattern. This has been a long time coming, lemme tell you. I've waited years. Well.. A year. But it was a long one. I've been telling people since he was born that he's a great kid, who sleeps for shit [again with the swearing... tsk tsk.] But recently he has started sleeping for at least 6 hours in a row, and sometimes from bedtime (7ish) to 5:15 the next morning! This is amazing, considering just a month ago he was waking up every two hours, AT LEAST, from 10pm on. Even more amazing, I didn't have to resort to CIO. Apparently, all you need to do is to get to the point where you BUY the CIO book (in tears yourself, don't ya know), and the kid sees what's coming and shapes up. Must remember this lesson next time he gets it in his head that he's in charge... "I'll do it... I'll buy a BOOK." But I digress - he is sleeping and it's wonderful. I haven't even told many people about it yet - too scared to jinx it - so is it too soon in this new habit/behaviour to test it with a late night?

Besides this issue, there's the whole "will I even have fun at this outdoor concert close to a major intersection with my cranky and ambulatory child?" question. My gut says 'no'. But my desire to see two of my favourite bands from my youth play for FREE is telling my gut to shut the hell up.

It's the Proclaimers, dammit!
Followed by Arrested Development! (the band, not the TV show by the same name. Though I also really enjoyed the TV show.)

But... sleep.
And there won't be any parking downtown on a Friday night during a major music festival, so there's the bus or walk to consider too. Walking there - not so bad. Walking back, tired baby, tired mom, and masses of people wondering wtf you're doing out on a Friday night after dark with a STROLLER, and on THEIR sidewalk, dammit...

Yeah.

Looks like another Friday night in.

Blogging, eh? Sure, why not.

So now that F is one, and I'm back at work full-time after a year of maternity leave (yay Canada!), I'm thinking... blog.

I already have a tendency to treat Facebook and Twitter as a short-form blog - blog posts in 140 characters or less! - so it might not be too much of a stretch to flush out my updates and notes to paragraph form. I guess we'll see. I must admit a tendency to start things and never finish... [stops, and thinks of all the beautiful diaries and journals she has owned, with one or two sad lonely entries] and I'm not entirely sure I have much to say on a regular basis - that's fit for human consumption, that is - but what the hay.

In retrospect - F's first year would likely have been much more interesting to blog about: all the major firsts, the BRUTAL (and largely on-going) sleep deprivation, the crawling at 6 months and the walking before 1 year (yes, that's right - I have a V.A.B. [Very Advanced Baby], folks. I'm not going to lie - he's brilliant, beautiful and incredibly physically gifted. It's also possible that I'm a wee bit biased), but F's father (from this day forward to be known as DBD - DeadBeatDad) always referred to blogs as ‘big logs' (as in: poop), which, weirdly, prevented me from trying out the medium. By the way - in addition to my tendency to not finish things I start - I also actually *enjoy* run-on sentences. I use a lot of parentheses (of various kinds) and long dashes, to attempt to help you parse them, but really - I'm just verbose. Apologies to your taxed brains.

Anyhow - a little more about me, since this is to some extent, an introduction: As I said - I'm now back at work (this is week 2, and I've already applied for other jobs while here, *and* started a blog - I have an awesome work ethic, obviously) and F is in daycare. We are a lovely little family of 2, with a crapload of wonderful friends and extended family around. We live in downtown Ottawa in a small (but adequate) apartment - we're not the kind of downtown family who owns a gorgeous old house with a BMW parked outside it, but I'm ok with that (most of the time) - and I work (admin) for a non-profit organization. F's father (DBD) is not in the picture at all - his choice - and at the moment isn't even contributing child support, thus his name change from the former ‘jerkface' to ‘DBD'. (I do hope to be able to go back to using ‘jerkface' someday, when he lives up to his responsibility and supports his child. The non-payment of support is just the icing on the top of the jerkiness cake. Boy, can I pick ‘em.)

I am a relatively positive person, with the uncanny ability to engage in catastrophic and panicked hypothesizing while still thinking that things will be ok eventually. My boy is my great joy, and my most entertaining and nerve-wracking challenge, and in case you were wondering - I actually think I've got it *easier* in a lot of ways, raising him alone.

I am his sole parent - not a single parent ½ the time - and he is [the best?] part of my soul.

Nutshell, meet Sarah.