Compadre & Comadre

The Watson family has honoured the Peron family by asking Mark and I to be godparents to their newest addition, little Ella. As touched as we were to be asked, Mark and I were hesitant seeing as we are not really devout religious people. We do like to think of ourselves though, as moral people. Loving people. People who have good values to teach wee little tykes. And we have so much love we would be excited to spill upon Miss Watson.

Despite our inadequacies in the pious department, the Watsons accepted our acceptance of their proposal for us to be godfolks. And as my excitement as neutralized to a more moderate level, my technical side has kicked in and I find myself wondering what a godparent does.

I imagine a godparent is like a bonus aunt and uncle. You know how you don't get to pick your own family? (And therefore, you don't get to pick who will Uncle and Aunt your children). You do get to pick your friends and so, we are like a chosen aunt and uncle. How exciting to be chosen! And I think this means we can send lots of presents around holidays and birthdays. This also means that we go to the breaking-in ceremony of godparents which takes place in a church and is called a baptism. We say vows that mean we are totally committed to co-parenting Ella. And she gets a little water dripped on her forehead.

Now, we are game for taking care of Ella if Hil and Chris kick the bucket, but Hil says we need only be back-ups as they've already got some people signed up for that role. But I think that godparenting must mean being a moral barometer for Ella, teaching her what we feel are good and bad things to do. (i.e. Loving all god's creatures is good; Sling-shotting squirrels in beech nut trees is bad). I think we tell her she can do anything she sets her mind to and we help her achieve her goals (like by helping her with science fair projects and giving her lots of educational books and making her watch a lot of Canadian-content television instead of less wholesome American crap). I think being a godparent means I teach her the secret language of Melilary when she is old enough to truly appreciate that Bom Est Nullum. It means that if she wants to take up running slow but long distances, I can train with her and I can go cheer her on at her races. And if she decides to start a record collection, Mark can teach her what is and is not good music.

Despite all my own interpretations, I did take a moment to consult the largest, free, on-line Encyclopedia and according to the wisdom of Wikiworld, in a non-religious sense, a godparent is a co-parent. In Spanish or Portugese, a godmother is comadre and a godfather is compadre which mean co-mother and co-father respectively. I like that. It sums it all up. We'll co-parent Ella.

And if she can't find the right dress to wear to the ball, I'll whip out my wand and work my magic.

Melissa and Mark do Niagara Falls

29 weeks and counting...

Music Appreciation

Mark and I car-sat my mother's Honda Civic while she was on vacation for five weeks this summer. And during one particular trip, Mark stock-piled the pocket in the driver's side door with burned musical gems that suited his taste. Music by Jay Reatard and No Bunny and the Homosexuals and Fuck Me Stupid (or something like that). Some of this music, despite its purposefully crass album and band names, can be quite good. Some of it displays incredible talent (I particularly like BBQ and King Khan and their one-man bands). Most of it is very unique. All of it is loud and raw.

My mother drove her car home after her trip and she phoned us that night to tell us that she'd discovered Mark's CDs in the car. No problem. We'd get them from her next time we saw her. Surely Mark has enough music in the basement to tide him over for a month or two.

As a teacher, Mom is the head of a carpooling group. And as teachers, they've been heading out to school this week to prepare their classrooms. Karen is one of the teachers Mom carpools with. Mythlie is the other. Both of them are middle-aged and parents. Mythlie has a fairly traditional Indian family. The three ladies love to chit chat in the car to pass the time; sometimes they have heated discussions, sometimes they gossip and sometimes they argue.

Apparently today, on their way home from school, my mother suddenly had a fun idea, "Mythlie! Let's listen to some of Melissa's husband's music." (I guess Karen wasn't with them). Mythlie agreed. So Mom put in a CD and they were both fairly taken aback. Mom proceeded to put four more CDs in, a full sampling. And the ladies' surprise gave way to amusement. They began to laugh. They found the subject matter intriguing, if not to their tastes exactly. And they promptly labelled the tunes "heavy metal". Mom protested mildly, "...but Mark is so quiet."

Mark's only comment, upon hearing the story, "Oh dear. I wonder which ones they listened to."

Sorry Mr. Suzuki

I am trying very, very hard to remember to bring my reusable grocery bags to grocery stores and even, when I'm VERY with-it, to regular department stores. Today, however, my good intentions doubly punished Mother Earth.

I needed a tub of sour cream. So I slung a cloth bag over my shoulder and headed over to the Ultra mart.

I found the sour cream, proceeded to the check-out and then went into daydreaming mode and forgot to tell the young cashier that I had my own cloth bag. She had already put my sour cream tub (completely sealed up and non-contaminating, I might add) into a disposable plastic bag. Once I'd paid and she handed me the bag, I looked at it for a moment and then realized my mistake. "Actually," I proclaimed proudly, "I brought my own grocery bag today. So I don't need this one thanks."

I carefully took out the receipt and the product and put them in my cloth bag.

The girl shrugged as I gave her back her plastic bag. She balled it up with her hands and tossed it into a garbage.

How are you feeling?

I am asked this question, by many sweet and caring friends and acquaintances and family on a daily basis. And having so many people look at you with genuine concern on their faces is very touching. But, I have to say, when asked this question, I can never answer right away.

I have to ask myself, is this an "I'm Fine" kind of conversation....where the acquaintance cares enough to politely ask and to show interest in my pregnancy, but isn't really in it for the half hour rant that may follow? Or is this a friend who can handle hearing a bit of mild griping, you know, upbeat comments such as "I'm getting a weeeeeeeeeeeeee bit uncomfortable, but really, in general I'm fine" being-a-good-sport kind of attitude stuff. Or is this a friend who loves me enough to truly want to know that I am far too self-centred and superficial to truly be enjoying all the joys of the growth of another human being for self-pity because I have tried every feasible position on land and on sea and there exists not a single one that gives me comfort enough to sleep thoroughly through a six hour period and I am complaining even knowing that the person who is asking may have a young child and is his or herself not getting more than three hours of sleep in a day but I don't care!

So let me start off by saying that I KNOW this is not pain. I KNOW that childbirth is far worse and that early parenthood will leave me in a state of sleep deprivation ten million times worse than this, the depths of which I cannot even imagine right now. I KNOW that discomfort is a word that I might toss around now casually, but that when applied to labour contractions will take on an entirely new meaning. I KNOW that there are women out there who can't experience the wondrous joy of pregnancy and that this is a miracle blossoming forth from my loins. I KNOW that I am lucky beyond reason to not be in a third world country where I have to lug stagnant and dismal-looking water in a jug on my head thirteen miles each way to and from a watering hole and sleep on a hard earthen floor of my straw hut. I KNOW. I KNOW. I KNOW.

However, this is my blog.
And I get to say whatever I want on my blog.
And I just have to say that I am only seven months pregnant and I am ALREADY a bit distressed that I can't seem to find comfort....in any position, for a period longer than sixteen minutes.

Walking is okay. I sometimes try to remember how I walked before I was pregnant and before my toes decided to point outwards and my hips "opened". I try not to stop, midway through my walk, to lean back with my hands on the sides of my back in the oh-so-typical-I'm-pregnant pose. I also try to rest on objects such as park benches and fences with my arms atop, my rear end poking shamelessly out the back and my belly hanging freely somewhere below like a huge hornet's nest under a bridge ... only when no one is looking. I sit on pillows at the dining room table. I stand up in doctor's waiting rooms (and there have been many) every few minutes, to rock from leg to leg so my back doesn't kink up. I sometimes hold my arms up in the air after a little outdoor excursion to reduce the swelling in my fingers. I use hand lotion to unstick my wedding ring from my finger. And sleeping...well....that's a whole other ball game.

You see, sleeping poses two problems. There is the ever-present question of position and there is the heat issue.

Let's start with the heat issue. I am pregnant and it is summer and we have air conditioning, so really and truly, it shouldn't be any different from being pregnant in the fall or winter and it probably isn't. And walking around the house during the day, my body temp feels completely reasonable. At night, however, when a cushy mattress cradles at least a fourth of my skin surface and pillows and sheets may, to many varying degrees, cradle other parts of my skin layer, well, I heat up. Mark likes to say that around one o'clock in the morning, I go atomic. I go super-nova. I begin to incinerate every flammable fabric that I touch. The sheets heat up. The air beneath the sheets heats up. The poor, loving husband who shares the air beneath the sheets heats up too. And god HELP him if his arm should accidentally graze one of the prime heat producing parts of my body (boobs and belly). I shudder to think of what the consequences would be.

Pair this heat problem (vast understatement) with the whole finding-a-comfortable-position issue and you've got the perfect recipe for the most imperfect sleeping conditions. The answer, I am told by every knowledgeably post-gestational woman I know, is to use pillows. Pillows, they tell me. Put pillows between your knees. And put them behind your back. And put them under your abdomen. And put them under your neck. Well, then we've got a super-atomic-heat-producing mass of a woman, completely cocooned on all possible skin surfaces by insulating material. Does this seem safe to you?

The answer, I have decided, is refrigerated pillows. Or maybe pillows with refrigerating units within them. You know, similar to those plug-in heating blankets. These would be plug-in cooling pillows. Then a woman could cocoon herself to a point of adequate comfort AND douse the copious amounts of thermal energy emanating from her pregnant bits to such an extent that perhaps, and only perhaps, sleeping might be possible.

Where is her partner during all of this?
Probably on the couch.
Thinking that his sleep issues will be resolved when the baby is born........

Beech Tree Squirrels

There is a big beech tree in our front yard. We're not even sure if it's a beech tree. We have no evidence except that two neighbours came over to examine the large green nuts it's been dropping on our front walkway and they, very decisively, stated that it was a beech tree. In the spring these "beech" nuts were small. The neighbour dog, Jackson, liked to come over and munch on them occasionally. Now, the beech nuts are quite large. But they don't fall to the ground whole any more. No, they fall in teensy, sticky, half-devoured bits.

If we sweep the front walkway and try to remove the bits of beech nut from our car's roof and trunk and hood and the nook between the hood and the windshield, we only find that they have returned in full force the next day.

Yesterday, I carefully removed all the beech nut remnants from our driveway and walkway with a broom and a metal shovel which I used as a dust pan. It took me more than a half hour.

Today, I was out on the porch, watching the rain storm come in, and grimacing sourly at the newly littered walkway, when I saw, before my eyes, a piece of beech nut fall from the tree. Then another fell. And another. I looked up through the tangle of bushy "beech" branches but I couldn't see anything. I stepped out under the tree and craned my neck and shielded my eyes with my hand. Mark pulled into the driveway and stood next to me and did the same. We moved all around the tree, peering up through the branches until we had spyed the culprit - a cocky, looking black squirrel.

So we did the only thing we could do (without ready access to a sling shot). We plucked beech nuts and began throwing them up at the bushy menace. We threw dozens of beech nuts and didn't come close to hitting him. He continued to ignore our precarious tosses. We wished for a more menacing cat. We wished for one that could climb ontop of a couch, let alone, to the top of a beech nut tree. We sent angry, threatening mind-messages to the black squirrel. Then Mark finally tossed a nut that came close enough to send the beast scurrying to a higher branch, where he paused, if only for a moment, in his feast, to look down on us with laughing eyes. I think I even heard him cackle evilly.

This isn't the end, Beech Nut Squirrel. This isn't the end!

Baby Love

How does a woman feel supported during a pregnancy? And how does a man show his support? It would be such a lucky happenstance if the list of deeds was the same in answer to both questions. In most situations, it is not.

For instance, a woman wants a man to positively break down in tears when he sees the first ultrasound. She wants him to lie every night with his head tenderly balanced on her belly and sing the unborn to sleep. She wants him to debate nursery furniture and colour coordinates with enthusiasm and interest, but always to defer the final decision to her. Similarly, she wants him to provide lengthy lists of potential baby names and to engage in animated discussions, but then to leave her with vito power. She wants him to LOVE prenatal classes - to bring a thick notebook and scribble in the margins of baby books like a man possessed. She wants him to skip along to every obstetrician appointment with his own list of questions clutched in his hand.

How does a loving and anxiously excited dad-to-be truly show his support? He will GO to the first ultrasound, dutifully hold his wife's hand and scrutinize the computer screen in order to try to figure out which end is the head. He will not necessarily caress the pregnant belly every waking moment in hopes of feeling a movement, but he will tenderly love and caress his wife as she proceeds to get rounder and rounder, to complain about her weight and her various adipose deposits while she voraciously devours all the good treats in the fridge and pantry. He will paint the baby's room, risking life and limb on teetering ladders and painstakingly touching up the trim around the windows and closets. He will allow his wife to make the decorating decisions as long as her choices don't make his unborn son seem lame. He will cross OFF the names he does not like on as many lists of baby names as she is willing to create. He will agree to accompany her to prenatal classes despite the fact that his best friend says they're not necessary and despite the fact that they take up six consecutive wednesday nights of his time. He will even agree to go to a hospital tour, whatever that is! And he will go to the first obstetrician appointment in order to meet the person who has a 20% chance of delivering his first-born child. He may not do these things merrily, but he will do them because it will make his wife smile. He will frequently ask, "Is this something I should go to?" because he is not always sure. And when he's not sure, he knows his wife will tell him.

Found the remote controller today.
It was buried under somebody's bedside table.....and it wasn't mine.

No More Bedtime Movies

Mark and I can no longer watch movies in bed. Well, we can't watch any DVD's in bed, that is. You see, someone has gone and misplaced the remote controller for our television/DVD machine. We can still use the satellite remote for regular tv watching, but the DVD player is inoperable without our old remote and it is MIA.

Mark is adamant that it was me who lost it. I swear I haven't been allowed to put my hands on a remote in one year and seventeen days. How could it have been me who lost it?

Regardless of the blame, we searched our bedroom high and low. We looked under bedside tables and the far recesses of under our bed. We even looked between the mattress and the box spring. We looked in our dresser drawers and between books and DVDs. We have searched everywhere. We looked in all the other rooms where other remotes live, thinking, maybe one of us had gotten up and walked out of the room with it in their hand. But we have had no success. The darn thing has completely disappeared. And so, for the past few months, we have been in this confusing and inconvenient predicament. And occasionally I will have the bright idea to rent a DVD and cozy up in our bedroom for the evening... until I remember, we are at the mercy of our missing controller.

SG

Frankie is now known, around these parts, as SG "Skinny Girl".

Frankie the Un-FC

I am feeling a bit ashamed. Mark and I, and the rest of the world along with our encouragement, have been calling Frankie fat since the beginning of time. Well, nearly since the beginning of Frankie. FC became a very common abbreviation for Fat Cat. It was said with love and only a titch of ridicule. Also, Mark has been known to wander around the house going, "Hey Fatso!" (Being pregnant and a bit self-conscious, I'd sometimes whip my head around with angry eyebrows only to realize he was talking to the cat).

Well, we went away for the weekend and we left her LOTS of food and water. And when we returned, she hadn't really touched any food and she'd hardly touched the water. Over the past few days since we got back, she's still hunger-striking. Well, she's not eating her million dollar kibble. Instead, she will eat salmony treats when they are hand-fed to her. And she will drink water if I present it immediately in front of her (or, strangely, if it is dirty rainwater collecting in a puddle or a vacant dish). The vet also discovered that she will eat this special wet cat food called A/D, which stands for Anorexic Diet and which contains catnip. This vet, you can tell, is not in this profession for the glory. She couldn't find a spoon, so she dipped her fingers into the pureed mush and fed it to my sweet FC like that until she'd had her fill.

Speaking of FC, that's no longer technically true. The cat whom we teased for years is now slightly BELOW an ideal weight for her body type, I have been informed. She lost 4 pounds in about six months and that, apparently, is somewhat of a "drastic" weight loss. I guess it equates to losing about a third of your body weight in a half a year. The vet was very nice, but I began to feel so ashamed, like maybe I'd been starving my poor cat. When I told the vet I'd been feeding her dry Medical Reducing Formula, she asked, "And does the cat have free access to as much as she likes?" Is she CRAZY? I thought. When Frankie (well, the OLD FC anyway) had access to as much food as she wanted, she ate until she vomited and then she ate some more. She was, in every technical sense, bulemic! And now, with all the teasing, apparently we've made her anorexic!

Well, we bought some AD cans of food and I feed them to her.... on a spoon. And I carry her to her water dish. She doesn't really meow at me like she used to. I kind of miss that lusty demand for attention or food or to be let outside. She lies around listlessly (more listlessly than usual) and when I look at her sunken cheeks and forlorn glossy eyes, she tells me sad stories that I don't want to hear.

I fear Frankie may not live forever and it's very hard to say good-bye after fifteen years.

Consistent Tardiness - Unacceptable

I am going to let out a lot of suppressed anger regarding one of my biggest pet peeves. This blog will offend some readers. But I am tired of pussy-footing around the issue for fear of insulting a Constant Tardiness Offender! I feel offended!

Yes, this blog is directed at those of you who are always late. Now, I'm not talking about the guy who gets stuck in traffic occasionally, nor the person who is about to leave the house on one occasion and the baby barfs all over your shirt. I'm not talking about the person whose Mom phones a second before you walk out the door and strong-arms you into a telephone conversation about why you're still single. Occasionally, we are all late due to some unforeseen circumstances. But THIS blog is directed at people who are CONSISTENTLY late. How do you know if this is you? Do your friends refuse to book tee-off times because you never make them? Do they tell you the movie starts an hour before it actually does? Do you find that unforeseen circumstances are ALWAYS happening to you? Then you might just be one of these people.

First of all, grow up! You being late, at your age, is laziness. You don't care enough about other people's time! You hold people up, you make them miss appointments, you make them late. Even if YOU don't mind missing the previews for the show, or the first act of the play, maybe they do? Do you realize that every time you fail to show up for a rendez-vous on time, you inconvenience people that you probably think you care about? Own it! It's time to decide to be on time because other people are worth it.

Secondly, it is a psychologically proven human fault that we underestimate the time it will take to complete any given task. EVERY homosapien is in the same boat - predisposed by some kind of mental conditioning to need more time than they've alotted themselves. So why is it that it's just YOU that shows up late? Because humans are logical, reasoning beings, capable (if they so choose) to learn new behaviours. We have to teach ourselves to predict how long it takes us to get from point A to point B. And you can too. You just have to (as I mentioned earlier) OWN IT and then you can learn.

Now, make note, the next time you leave for a rendez-vous, what does your watch say the moment you walk out the door? What hiccups prevented you from arriving on time? How late did you arrive? Then use that feedback to improve your plan for next time. If you left for a seven o'clock movie at 7:02 and arrived a half hour late, then perhaps you need to leave a half hour earlier next time. A good first rule of thumb is NEVER to be at home when the clock strikes the hour that you are expected somewhere else. In fact, some of us calculate how much time we will need and then we add a safety net. You know, we add ten minutes if traffic is unpredictable. And we even add time for the things that you probably, right now, don't feel take any time. For instance, you need to add time to buy popcorn at the concession stand, you need to add time for using the rest room before finding your seat or standing in line at the box office. Be very generous in your estimates in order to try to fight the innate tendancy for humans to underestimate the time they need to do things. You are smarter and stronger than your animalistic instincts.

And last of all, in order to improve on this devastating fault in your personality, it is important to take the task of improving very seriously. If you can be on time for heart by-pass surgery, then you can be on time for a game of poker with friends. It's a matter of respect and even if your friends seem cool with you showing up late all the time, I promise you, it makes them feel less valued. You wouldn't want your friends feeling undervalued, would you?

Everyone can be punctual if they really put their mind to it.

End of Rant.

Frankie Baby

Mark and I decided to try out our hand-me-down baby sling on the most agreeable participant in our household. Well, the one who is too small to have a say.

Astronaut in the Family

Jay is my very determined little brother. He is also quite genius and has a quirky sense of humour. I recently learned that he has applied to the Canadian Space Agency to be an astronaut. He sent his resume and cover letter to my sister for proof-reading. But before he sent the real thing, he sent this:

Dear Canadian Space Agency,

I am applying in pursuit of my dream to become an astronaut. My peak mental and physical conditioning will allow me to not only survive but to tame the very wildness of outer-space for the betterment of all Canada-kind.

All of my education and training has been in preparation for this moment, to answer my country’s call for spacemen. I have completed my Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, so my natural mental acuity has been supremely trained and honed with the concepts of aerodynamics, robotics and space systems. Physicality is certainly an area where I am no wimp, for camping, hockey, and ultimate frisbee have honed this body of mine to the point where I have been compared to a Greek god.

Perseverance, tenacity, dedication, charismatic, genius, future Prime-Minister of Canada; all of these words, and more, have been used to describe yours truly. Whether I am captaining the University of Toronto Free Flight Glider Team or leading my ultimate frisbee team to yet another victory, I always demand the best from my teammates and myself. My father has described me as my own biggest critic, and I am, but yet I see no flaws. Perfect candidate, check!

End Letter.

Bananas and Fibre

I learned, while visiting my Aunt Jo and my Uncle Rob this weekend, that bananas are high in fibre. I thought they were kidding me because bananas seem so mushy. I asked, "Are they really high in fibre?"

And Aunt Jo said, "I asked Rob the same thing years ago, and you know what he said?"

"Oh yes. You only BORROW bananas!"