...the future Prime Minister of Canada

So today was my Wednesday coffee date with my my old BFF (aka blogger Maria Pace-Wynters).  I used to love hanging out with her.  She is funny & charming, soulful & authentic, talented & beautiful.  And she used to make me feel super cool just to be around her.  But that was until I met my new BFF, Justin Trudeau. 

Lola and I were just hanging out in Spinelli's (aka The Italian Centre Shop - a coffee shop attached to a great Italian market) with Maria and Scarlett like we do most Wednesdays.  We were having a lively discussion about dog poop and dental anesthesia over coffee and calzones.  It's the highlight of my week, if I'm honest.  Nothing can keep me from it and I mean nothing.  Like the fact that I hadn't showered or washed my hair in a few days. Or the fact that moments before I had to leave Lola had just fallen asleep and I had to wake her to get her coat on.  These days I don't always get it together before I leave the house.  Getting the two kids up, clothed, fed and out the door to walk Meg to school before 8:30 is usually about all I can muster.  I put on a hat and a smile and hope nobody stands close enough to smell me.  If I am lucky, when I get home from our walk to school Lola will have a nap and I will have a shower.  This morning I wasn't so lucky.  But as I told you that will not keep me away from my soul nourishing time spent with Maria..... So where was I?  Oh yah, dog poop and dental anesthesia.... and enter Justin Trudeau. 

Thanks to the excited and sweet Spinelli's employee we got the heads up that Justin Trudeau was on his way over for a cup of joe between speaking engagements.   We had pretty much finished our coffee by this time and Scarlett (3 years old) was finding every way possible to smear strawberry gelato all over her face and the table (she is a dynamic eater, that one). They had begun to move tables around.  Important looking people were filtering into the building.  We probably should have given up our table and cleared off but I was lingering, making excuses, nursing Lola a little more... And then suddenly he was there.  And we were completely starstruck.  After all the man is like Canada's JFK Jr. And there he was standing next to our table asking Lola what her name was.... Ok the man is not an idiot.  He knew she wouldn't answer but I think his words were, "and what is your name?"  He asked her age and talked about his daughter, Ella-Grace, who is 13 months old.  And then Lola began to wail.  And I mean full out, siren-decibel, ugly-faced crying. Did I mention that I had jarringly roused her from her morning nap in order to make my coffee date?  Thank god the man is a father of two small children.  He was so kind about it, chatted a little longer and then shook our hands and moved on.  Maria and I just looked at each other, grinned and pulled out our IPhones to send a few excited texts and try to take covert photos. 

After the initial excitement died down I went to the bathroom to change Lola and came back to gather up my things.  I popped Lola into the sling and was making a few adjustments when "he" walked past our table again.  He stopped to see if Lola had settled down from her previous wailing episode and noticed the sling.  At which point he became very animated about how great he and his wife thought baby wearing was and that babies in Africa don't have colic because they are carried all the time.  He even gave me a few tips on the hip carry for when she is a little bigger.  Was he for real? Smart, handsome and a bit of a hippie?  By now I figure we have a bit of rapport so I decide I might as well put it all on the line and ask to do something I have never done before.  "Would you mind terribly if we could have our photos taken with you?" 

After we left him we were like giggling teenagers.  In our fantasy world we had just had coffee with Justin Trudeau.  We wondered through the grocery aisles putting random things in our baskets.  We went to the check out in a daze and I put my roasted fava beans and spelt pasta on the conveyer.  It wasn't until I got to my car that I snapped out of it a bit and remembered that I was disguising unwashed hair under my funky corduroy hat.... that I had failed to apply deodorant before I left the house this morning... *sniff, sniff*... oh boy... had I even brushed my teeth?  Nope. 

I drove home to return to my glamourous life.  Dirty dishes piled high on the counter, diapers to rinse in my bathtub, papers piled up on the coffee table, something sticky on the floor in the kitchen.... 

Mr. Trudeau, if you are reading this please don't think any less of me.

...one year.

Happy Blogiversary to me, happy blogiversary to me, happy blogiversary dear I Spy With My Little Eye, happy blogiversary to meeeeee.

One year ago today I made a bit of a deal with myself.  I was going to attempt to write as often as I could or at least as often as the notion struck me.  Everyday, once a week, regularly, sporatically... I didn't know how it would unfold but I would write and I started with this. I surprised myself.  I wrote some stuff that felt genuine and creative.  I was excited to share it and increasingly delighted by the legacy I was creating for my children.  For them to one day read and witness me unfolding as a mother to them.  Today I gave myself a Blogiversary present.  I read my blog.  The whole years worth.  I cried a little, remembered nuances of the last year that I had forgotten, was honoured again as I read the comments that you have left for me... and most surprisingly I didn't cringe...not even a little.  I was actually hanging on every word.  Hungry for more.  Captivated by the honesty of the prose.  Huh?  Who knew?  I was even intrigued and surprised at how the body of work as a whole revealed the transformation of my life over the last year.   How wildly feminine and introspective my "gestational" posts were and how unaplogetically selfish they seemed over the summer.  How my subject matter and focus meandered from one aspect of my life to the next in the months to follow.

I have many more bits and pieces of writing started, in process or scribbled as ideas here and there.  Most of those will never make their way to this place to be read (and reread by me) but they are what keeps the fire stoked, feeds the hunger to create and ultimately nurtures the growth that I long for and realize through this process. 

To me... Yah me.

...stuff

I watched the video on this website while breastfeeding Lola.  Six minutes in I was angry and sobbing.  Watch it...you will see why.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

...joy rising.

On Easter Sunday my entire family (and some extra loved ones) gathered at my mom's place for an Easter egg hunt and dinner.  In all it was 10 children under the age of ten and 16 adults.  It was to be a simple holiday.  No large baskets full of chocolate and candy.  Just a simple outdoor egg hunt, some good food and great company.  The only little extra we had all planned for was some kite flying.  A sure sign of spring.  A brand new kite tied onto a fresh spool of string.  The sound of rubber boots when you run... You know that sound?  Kind of hollow and flompy.  The dads would take the kids out in the field and let those kids run up and down the furrows until they tired or the kites were lifted skyward by the warm spring breeze.  Eventually the kids would give up and the dads would start running.... Or so this is how I saw it.  It was the scene of my childhood for many Easter Sunday afternoons. 

This Easter would be different...

The egg hunt was sublime.  How ten kids could be so perfectly delighted with a hunt for a bunch of plastic eggs is a beautiful and mysterious thing to me.  They all stood at the door, baskets in hand, like a bunch of wild horses at the gate.  And when the door opened they ran around the yard plucking the brightly coloured eggs from branches, under steps, inside planters, balanced in downspouts and laying in random clusters on the ground.  The sound and the sight of these kids was a joy to behold.  One might think that they would be rushing to fill their baskets.  Boastful to have the most eggs or have filled their baskets the fastest.  But this was not what I witnessed at all.  My 9 month old babe had a basket too.  She was watching it all from the comfort of her sling on my hip.  I sidled up to some Lola height eggs in the branches of the spruce trees so she could pluck her own but soon her basket was overflowing with the donations of all the other children.  Eggs were being picked up and plopped in whatever basket looked a little sparse.  Some of the older or more eager children would call to the little ones when they had found a cluster ideal for sharing.  There was this incredible civility about the whole activity and the adult observers were grinning from ear to ear.  Is this it?  Have we finally reached the pay off for all those years of hovering to manage the hurt feelings or misdirected energy of our spirited preschoolers?  Whatever it was no one was complaining... In fact no one said much, I think for fear of jinxing it. 

When the hunt was over we went inside for an incredibly civilized meal as well.  There seemed to be no major meltdowns about who would sit next to whom.  Or tears about gravy leaking out of the potato well and contaminating brussel sprouts.  Plates were cleaned and tummies were full.  The women folk began the pleasant chore of finding containers for the leftovers and loading the dishwasher.  Laughing and teasing while eating the crunchy bits of stuffing that get left on the inside of the serving dish.  This is when my perfect Easter Sunday was to manifest itself with the sight of half a dozen kites flying in the sky outside the kitchen window.... Not a chance.

Last year our changing family dynamics and a 20 year old car in need of some extensive repairs led us to buy a new(ish) car.  The 1990 Dodge Spirit that had been our trusty chariot for more than ten years was put out to pasture at my mom's.  It was a perplexing decision to retire the old dear.  She had never really failed us.  We had to remind ourselves that she had begun to use a lot of gas, the brakes locked when called upon to stop quickly, the trunk was no longer watertight and so therefore smelled... real bad.  But after more than a year of sitting on mom's lawn the old bucket needed nothing more than a bit of battery charging and she fired right up.  So while most of us puttered away in the kitchen my husband gathered up the two daredevil children and went out the Spirit for a bit of a spin around the yard.  Sam (7 years old) and Sydney (8) piled into the front seat with Uncle David, one on the passenger seat and the other on his lap.  He would operate the gas and brakes and they would "drive" the car.  Pretty soon the windows were lined with children and grownups alike watching the kids drive around the 3 acre yard.  Some of the other kids wanted to go outside but we wouldn't let them for fear they would be run over by a wreckless 8 year old driver.  But as Uncle David pulled up on the front lawn to trade drivers we would send one or two more of the older children out to climb in the back seat.  The little ones were begging to go out too and eventually we caved.  They could get in the car but they were NOT allowed to drive.  Soon there were nine children and one adult in that car.  Dave would let them make a couple of rounds and then pull up on the front lawn where all the doors would fling open and the musical chairs would begin.  On the longest straight stretch Dave would slow right down and then put his foot on the gas.  Causing fits of laughter, screaming and feet to go flying up in the air as they fell back into the well worn seats.  As they drove past the deck where most of us had gathered to watch they would all shout "Happy Easter" out the open windows.  I don't know when I have ever felt so awash with the unbridled joy of a group of kids.  Their grins were contagious and I wish I could have harnessed the energy.  It was joy rising.

In the end 8 of those nine kids took the wheel.  The youngest, pictured here, is three. 

We had planned to donate that car to a charity this spring.  Finally say goodbye to it and thank it for all those years of reliable service.  But on Sunday I could envision that in a few short years that same gaggle of giggling kids could pile into that car and head into town to get slurpees at 7-eleven.  Just as I had done, in a car ten years older than I was, testing the waters, spreading my wings....