...food, glorious food.

Why when we holiday does it seem to completely revolve around food?  From the minute I step foot in the departure lounge I am thinking about food. Why didn't I pack food?  When will they feed me on the plane?  Will it be icky? Should I have ordered the vegetarian meal? I often get one last overpriced beverage or snack before boarding. Not being in control of my food intake on an 8 hour flight drives me a bit mental. I eat when I'm not hungry just cause I don't know when my next meal will be and no matter how bad it is I like to eat it all cause it's included in the price of my flight and not much else is these days. On a transatlantic flight the meal times are all out of whack and your body gets a bit messed up (not to mention that i try to avoid using the loo)... And this all before I have landed in my holiday destination.

Straight out of the arrivals gate I am scanning for my next fix. Coffee? A sandwich? A foreign snack from the news agent?  Once on the road my eyes are on the lookout for bakeries, grocery stores and roadside chippers. We don't make it too far down the road before we stop at a grocery store and buy the most random array of edible delights. Cheese, crisps, yogurt, a packet of Angel Delight and a jar of Branston Pickle. None of which fills the void of our immediate food needs.  

Perhaps it's about living the experience to the fullest. We have to eat anyway so why not make that part of the adventure? Indulge in things we can't get at home and try things we never otherwise would eat. Or maybe it's as simple as harbouring a lifelong obsession with food.  Yep. I think that's it. I love food. And I hate my relationship with it. But when I am on holiday the gloves are off and it feels less.....guilt laden. 

And now that we travel with wee ones the food factor only multiplies. We strive to find balance in feeding Meg while she watches us shamelessly out of balance ourselves. Is it really ok that she has eaten crisps as an appetizer to most meals this week?  Including breakfast?  And might I add that breakfast is a bowl of Frosties or a plate of maple pancakes? If I hear "I'm hungry" or "I'm thirsty" one more time today I might just go batty. We have tried, without success to teach Meg that travel and urgency do not go well together. Eat and pee when you have the chance not when you HAVE to. *sigh* This is only the end of the first week. 

And the only person almost completely unaffected by the food frenzy is Lola. And although she appears unscathed by it, her food situation adds yet another layer to my stress. Still not eating. I have let a lot of things go in my journey to feed Lola. I started out with all the highest standards of food selection. Organic, homemade, fresh, raw, whole fruit.  Soon the cooking and pureeing began. Then the homemade rule was abolished. Next to fall was organic. And now??? It doesn't have to be fruit, vegetable or any combination of. I don't care if she shoves a macaroni pie in her mouth. I've offered her yogurt, ice cream, fish, pickles, oatmeal...I think she even had a chip (french fry) in her hand here one day, but nothing makes it past her lips.  

So the battle continues. Today was all about food again. We ate a weird array of breakfast foods at the cottage, a strange assortment of snacks, a late lunch at a terrible restaurant in Inverness (I kept expecting Gordon Ramsay to walk through the door or find out I was on candid camera), then we spent the good part of an hour like kids in a candy store at Marks & Spencers (I wish I could upload the photos), we followed this with another meal out to try and make up for the earlier disaster....and now we are eating crisps and drinking cider, beer and stout. And tomorrow we will do it all again. 

Eat, drink and be merry...I guess. But mostly eat!      

...an Argentine Tango.

I love that dance. Have you seen it? Argentine Tango

This dance requires complete connection with your partner. Feet so close and so intertwined at times that one wrong move would lead to a pile of body and limbs on the floor. It is breathtaking to watch.

Wikipedia says this, "Argentine tango is a new orientation of couple dancing. As most dances have a rational-pattern which can be predicted by the follower, the ballast of previous perceptions about strict rules has to be thrown overboard and replaced by a real communication contact, creating a direct non-verbal dialogue. A tango is a living act in the moment as it happens." I like this description. It is so much more than steps to follow. So much more than footprint diagrams showing you where to step next. It is not about "dancing". It is about being that act of dancing.

I have a new dance partner. She and I have only been dancing together for just over a year. At first we were all left feet and I, quite frankly, did not feel the least bit graceful. I was still enjoying very much the fluid and effortless footwork with my dance partner of 5 years. I wasn't sure if I was ready for another one. It had taken all of those 5 years to perfect some of the steps with her. We were starting to take on more challenging footwork some days or enjoying the ease of something familiar on others. Did I really want to start from square one again? But after a rough start and a lot of resistance on my part we just clicked one day. It took about 7 months before I found that I felt really beautiful as we swayed together in our nested embrace. We had shifted from "gestating" to "being the act of gestation". Together we were a whirling dervish of growth and creation. Culminating in the wildest, most frenetic dance of our lives on the day we met. Now with 5 months of face to face dancing under our belts I am happy to report that we are just as clumsy as ever some days and as skillful and agile as professionals on others. It helps when we both pick the same dance of course. Sometimes I am in the mood for a waltz or a foxtrot but Lola is all revved up for a quickstep or jitterbug. The roles reverse just as frequently too. But it truly does feel like one, long, seamless (or attempt at seamless) dance. Each move by one of us having a direct impact on the other. We ebb and flow, sway and shuffle... It isn't always pretty but it works. Now that we are a family of four it gets complicated. I guess on a good day we get quite the hoedown going. Our unconventional square dance is a sight to behold. But most days I think it looks like more of a mosh pit.

I find that at any given time I have a good groove going with one of my dance partners and the others are a bit awkward. One day maybe I will become skillful enough to dance with all three of my partners with grace and endurance, simultaneously. For now I will dance with wild abandon. I will feel the beat deep in my bones and create a rhythm that rocks our love-filled home.

...watery eyes, runny noses and fever.

The "sickness" entered my house this week. It came in like a speeding bullet and I thought we would all be hit by it and hard, but so far it just seems to have tiptoed around our house quite gently and we are hoping it has already taken it's leave of us. However, even this most gentle of bugs did completely consume our home while it was here. Meg might not agree that it was so gentle since she was the one that had fever, chills, aches and puking. Knocked her on her ass for 24 hours. But the rest of us were overtaken by constant hand washing, gargling, nasal hydrating and an awkward dance of avoidance. Poor Meg. No one wanted to snuggle the poor little sicky and she slept in a nest at the foot of our bed so that she was near but not near enough to sneeze on us. She handled the whole thing with absolute grace (and a puke bowl in her lap for most of Tuesday)... Lola handled it all the way only a four month old could, with total oblivion...
And I let it totally consume me. I spent Tuesday doing what my mom did for me when I was sick. I made a bed for Meg on the couch and turned on the tv. I catered to her every need. When she asked for banana bread, I made banana bread. When she puked on her pjs, I did laundry. When she wanted a snuggle... I rubbed her feet. We were a good team, all three of us. Today she was better. So as the dust settled this evening and I looked around my house I saw what a couple days of getting out of our rhythm causes. I missed the deadline to order school photos, I missed our parent teacher conference this afternoon, Meg's tell and show homework is not done, her lunch for school is not made, her outfit for the morning is not laid out and she got to bed a bit too late. When I put her to bed (in her nest at the foot of our bed)tonight I thought she would be back at school tomorrow. Her fever will have been gone for 24 hours and she is pretty much back to normal. But just now she woke up in a confused stupor and wandered around the room looking for something, anything to comfort her. When I couldn't help her she brought me the phone, then she went to the bathroom and looked for something that she couldn't find there.... Maybe school is a long shot. One more day of mama loving couldn't hurt in the big scheme of things could it?

...a fashionista.

Last night I was getting ready to go out to a concert with some friends and I had only assembled the top of my outfit. Meg came into our room and told me now all I needed was some skinny jeans.
Me - "But Meg I don't have skinny jeans that will fit me while I'm pregnant"
Meg - "Too bad because that would create such a nice silhouette"
Me - (aghast that my 5 year old knows what a silhouette is) "Really? Well I will have to settle for my yoga pants"
Meg - "That will work ok. Now let's go and create a nice silhouette for me" (marches out of my room to dig in her closet)

When did this happen? I am so proud!