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.