the rain rain rain
Mary-Alice is finally big enough to go into the Boba! (A "soft-structured" carrier, in the babywearing world's lingo. Best known example is an Ergo.) As much as the faux Moby is soft, cuddly, and comfy, SSCs rule in the convenience department. The big thing I don't like about wraps is that there's no way to prevent the tails from dragging when you start to wrap. And the floor/ground is usually dirty, or worse, wet, when you're out.
I want to blog more so this will make a big difference because now I can wear Mary-Alice more easily while Pippa is napping, if Mary-Alice doesn't want to sleep (she usually doesn't at that time).
I've been thinking about splitting my blogging. My LJ would continue as an "online journal", writing about my life, y'know, the stuff that's really only interesting to people who know me. Then I would start a blog proper, probably on Blogspot, to deal with stuff that is other-oriented. The reason I've been thinking about splitting is that LJ is pretty much dying. I have friends still on here, and for an online journal with people who are interested in me and motivated to follow me, it works fine. But for interacting with "the world", it's not really very good anymore. For one thing, I've done all the tricks I know about to minimize search engine inclusion etc, so I'm not likely to get found by people. I have IP logging on, anonymous comments on screen, etc. For an online journal that is about my family, that's what I want, but it's not very well-suited for writing articles.
The other thing is that I would like to try to write at least one post for each per week.
The big thing I want to record in my online journal is a lot of the milestone stuff. I'm trying to compare Mary-Alice to Pippa and I'm not clear about timelines. For example, Mary-Alice's eyes are still a very clear, blue-grey color. I seem to remember that at this point, Pippa's eyes had already started to darken. I seem to remember in particular that we had a debate for her passport, what color to put down, because the eye color was this weird deep, deep blue-charcoal, almost black. We decided to put it down as blue, because as I argued, if her eye color ended up brown, a border officer would understand how it might have been blue when she was 2 months old and brown now, but might be more skeptical if it turned out a blue color and we had brown down. (As it turns out, her eyes are hazel like mine.)
So. This week. The Husband worked full-time this week. To sum-up for the uninitiated, in Canada either parent can share 35 weeks of parental leave, which pays 55% of your weekly earnings up to a max of $501 per week. However, you can also go back to work part time during this time and earn up to something like 80% total. So by going back to work one shift a week, The Husband's take-home pay is about 80% of what he would get if he were working full-time. So really, financially and emotionally, we're better off with him taking as much time off as possible, because the small decrease in income is more than offset by the money we save by not having to rely on take-out, convenience foods, not needing help with cleaning or babysitting assistance, etc. Plus it makes it much easier for me to continue to work by doing in-home daycare.
But. His work really was in a jam this week because of vacations, so as a favor Gordon went in. I only made it out of the house solo with them one day, fortunately the day we had the French class, so she didn't miss the class. I MEANT to leave the house every day, but couldn't get it together. Friday was really difficult because I think I did literally nothing but feed children and wipe bottoms. I think Pippa might be going through a growth spurt, because she's hungry all the time and eating seconds and thirds of everything. Plus, usually she only eats one or two food groups (eg just the meat, or just the veg, or just the carbs, or whatever). Lately she's actually been cleaning the plate. Like having a hobbit around, without the hairiness.
Sometimes I feel like this mother of two business is great, other times I feel like the worst mother in the world. Probably normal.
Vancouver is heavy into rain season now. I really need to buy myself a raincoat because it's impossible to hold an umbrella and push a stroller for more than about two minutes, at least without risking steering the stroller into the path of a car or putting a passerby's eye out with the umbrella. I'm going to try to find a shopping buddy who won't mind tag-teaming with Mary-Alice so I can try stuff on (leaving Pippa with Gordon). I'm thinking about this jacket, but I want to try it on. Pippa also is going to need a new raincoat and I actually want to get her a rainsuit instead. If I'm going to survive this winter I need to be the crazy mom who has her toddler out playing on the playground in the rain. That means sturdy, grippy boots, waterproof gloves, and a rainsuit. I need to prepared to drop some coin on them because I want them to last for the next kid(s).
I really need to get cracking though, especially for Pippa, because most of the national retailers operate on a Canada wide schedule, so they sell raincoats in the spring and clear them out in the summer and fall. That leaves Vancouverites in the ridiculous situation of not being able to buy raincoats at all during the height of the rainy season (winter). Meanwhile, the stores are full of coats that are too hot for wearing at any time in Vancouver, because they're designed with people in the rest of Canada in mind. An example of how failure to localize your stores can cost you sales.
I'm sad that the umbrella hat is only a ridiculous novelty item. If you think about it, a well-made one with decent coverage would be so great if you need both hands free.
I want to blog more so this will make a big difference because now I can wear Mary-Alice more easily while Pippa is napping, if Mary-Alice doesn't want to sleep (she usually doesn't at that time).
I've been thinking about splitting my blogging. My LJ would continue as an "online journal", writing about my life, y'know, the stuff that's really only interesting to people who know me. Then I would start a blog proper, probably on Blogspot, to deal with stuff that is other-oriented. The reason I've been thinking about splitting is that LJ is pretty much dying. I have friends still on here, and for an online journal with people who are interested in me and motivated to follow me, it works fine. But for interacting with "the world", it's not really very good anymore. For one thing, I've done all the tricks I know about to minimize search engine inclusion etc, so I'm not likely to get found by people. I have IP logging on, anonymous comments on screen, etc. For an online journal that is about my family, that's what I want, but it's not very well-suited for writing articles.
The other thing is that I would like to try to write at least one post for each per week.
The big thing I want to record in my online journal is a lot of the milestone stuff. I'm trying to compare Mary-Alice to Pippa and I'm not clear about timelines. For example, Mary-Alice's eyes are still a very clear, blue-grey color. I seem to remember that at this point, Pippa's eyes had already started to darken. I seem to remember in particular that we had a debate for her passport, what color to put down, because the eye color was this weird deep, deep blue-charcoal, almost black. We decided to put it down as blue, because as I argued, if her eye color ended up brown, a border officer would understand how it might have been blue when she was 2 months old and brown now, but might be more skeptical if it turned out a blue color and we had brown down. (As it turns out, her eyes are hazel like mine.)
So. This week. The Husband worked full-time this week. To sum-up for the uninitiated, in Canada either parent can share 35 weeks of parental leave, which pays 55% of your weekly earnings up to a max of $501 per week. However, you can also go back to work part time during this time and earn up to something like 80% total. So by going back to work one shift a week, The Husband's take-home pay is about 80% of what he would get if he were working full-time. So really, financially and emotionally, we're better off with him taking as much time off as possible, because the small decrease in income is more than offset by the money we save by not having to rely on take-out, convenience foods, not needing help with cleaning or babysitting assistance, etc. Plus it makes it much easier for me to continue to work by doing in-home daycare.
But. His work really was in a jam this week because of vacations, so as a favor Gordon went in. I only made it out of the house solo with them one day, fortunately the day we had the French class, so she didn't miss the class. I MEANT to leave the house every day, but couldn't get it together. Friday was really difficult because I think I did literally nothing but feed children and wipe bottoms. I think Pippa might be going through a growth spurt, because she's hungry all the time and eating seconds and thirds of everything. Plus, usually she only eats one or two food groups (eg just the meat, or just the veg, or just the carbs, or whatever). Lately she's actually been cleaning the plate. Like having a hobbit around, without the hairiness.
Sometimes I feel like this mother of two business is great, other times I feel like the worst mother in the world. Probably normal.
Vancouver is heavy into rain season now. I really need to buy myself a raincoat because it's impossible to hold an umbrella and push a stroller for more than about two minutes, at least without risking steering the stroller into the path of a car or putting a passerby's eye out with the umbrella. I'm going to try to find a shopping buddy who won't mind tag-teaming with Mary-Alice so I can try stuff on (leaving Pippa with Gordon). I'm thinking about this jacket, but I want to try it on. Pippa also is going to need a new raincoat and I actually want to get her a rainsuit instead. If I'm going to survive this winter I need to be the crazy mom who has her toddler out playing on the playground in the rain. That means sturdy, grippy boots, waterproof gloves, and a rainsuit. I need to prepared to drop some coin on them because I want them to last for the next kid(s).
I really need to get cracking though, especially for Pippa, because most of the national retailers operate on a Canada wide schedule, so they sell raincoats in the spring and clear them out in the summer and fall. That leaves Vancouverites in the ridiculous situation of not being able to buy raincoats at all during the height of the rainy season (winter). Meanwhile, the stores are full of coats that are too hot for wearing at any time in Vancouver, because they're designed with people in the rest of Canada in mind. An example of how failure to localize your stores can cost you sales.
I'm sad that the umbrella hat is only a ridiculous novelty item. If you think about it, a well-made one with decent coverage would be so great if you need both hands free.