It's been many moons since my last update. Once again, I'm rivaling Tolstoy for length of prose. I've split this into
Section A: Kibbles and Bits (the Youth)
Section B: Biker Doc and Biker Mama (the Tribal Elders)
Section C: Random Madnesses (The Whole Famn Damily)
...and it’s probably wise to not read the whole thing at once,unless you’re really into eyestrain.
Six months is a looong time in the life of a baby. Justin has changed somewhat since the last update, which left off with him learning to sit up. He has since learned how to crawl around the house at an alarming clip, pushing off with his right foot to achieve maximum forward velocity. For a while, he also had the unfortunate habit of putting his head down to watch his little legs churning along. This resulted in several high-speed collisions with furniture. I've had a great time taking him to malls and letting him crawl, and hearing the other shoppers exclaim "Hey! Look at that kid go! Holy cow!"
Justin also started cruising around the house shortly after learning to crawl. All this mobility came as a bit of a shock for Daniel, since he now had to safeguard his stuff from a roving predator instead of just keeping it away from a stationary object.
He's still a cheerful baby, and relatively calm, except when he gets ear infections or is teething. Then he turns into Umbilical-Boy, glued on and whiny. It really makes me look forward to bedtime,when I can gaze upon him with a fond maternal smile as he sleeps, all soft and fuzzy and angelic, and forget about how much I longed to give him away to a gypsy caravan a few hours earlier.
He's also pretty good at lots of stuff that I don't recall Daniel doing at this age - like clapping his hands, waving at people, playing peekaboo, and giving high-fives. And although he still doesn't use any words consistently, he makes definite, clear-sounding,extremely loud happy nonsense words.
GUB!!!
He's not too loud when he's upset, but when he's happy he'salmost embarrassing in public places. Chris says he’s like him as a baby - calm, but loud.
The one word he is using a lot these days is DAT!! Which, when combined with pointing, means roughly "name THAT thing." I remember this stage with Daniel. And just like Daniel, Justin loves being carried around the house as he points and yells and we name the DATT'ed objects. It's fun, but starts to get tiring before long, especially because he's still so bloody huge. Three yearsyounger than Daniel, but only about 4 pounds lighter.
My mom and Guy were talking about how he'll probably be like most little siblings, an unwanted tag-along when big brother wants to go off with his friends... and then they commented that, actually, Daniel may want him to come along when he goes bar-hopping, as a sort of bodyguard. I can just picture Daniel eyeing some big bruiser and saying, Oh yeah? Come here and say that, buddy, and my little brother will kick your butt!
Another big development in the works is standing and walking. He can stand on his own for quite a while - he'll pull himself up, lift one hand off his support, lift the other one, start playing with his hands - and then a sudden realization that gravity works makes him bump back down on his bum. It really reminds me of Robin Williams saying that babies who are learning to stand look a lot like drunks: Ah don' need yo help! Ah kin do it mahseff - oops, mebbe Ah cain't (bonk)
Although really, babies in general are a lot like inebriated persons: poor coordination, slurred, unintelligible speech, poor control of bodily functions and eruptions, unclear thought processes, inappropriate emotional responses, general good-naturedness that can suddenly turn to inexplicable belligerence... of course, drunks don't look nearly as cute when they fall asleep sitting up and start to drool.
Much as Daniel did at this age, Justin took his first step on a trip. One little step in Calgary, at Grandma Judy's house at Christmas time. He's working on improving and in the last few days has really made an effort to walk. And climb. It's an exciting but anxious time for us all.
The Kibble is going through a pretty good stage. Finally. The defiant-belligerent stage he went through was hell. There were a lot of adjustments for him to make - being 3 1/2, new baby, new city, and the parental units not being in top-notch condition didn't help matters any. He was routinely belligerent for about 6 months or so, and then it just sort of cleared up. Mind you he's still a handful, but I realized at one point that it had been days instead of hours since the last time he'd had a time-out. And that there had been surprisingly little screaming and crying and tantrums in the last few days - from me, that is (Daniel's behaviour had also improved). It took us all a while to get used to this new, improved Daniel.
This is a really neat age. I know I've said that about most stages he's gone through (except the defiant one), but it really is cool. He's becoming a real little person you can talk to, with opinions and ideas of his own. It's a real joy discovering what his personality is like, finding out about his interests and his hopes and dreams.
At one point we traveled to Ottawa by plane, and Daniel got to see the cockpit. The copilot asked him, “So, do you want to be a pilot when you grow up?”
“Not exactly,” he answered her, “I want to be a Space Ranger.”
Then, later, back at our seat, he confided, “Do you know what I really want to be? The parent of a small child.” I got all choked up.
At one point I realized how much we are home schooling Daniel. We've thought about homeschooling for a while, but... there are so many factors to consider. On the one hand, home schooled kids tend to do better academically than public school kids. On the other hand, much of that may be due to the fact that their parents are the type of people who would be more involved in their children's education anyway, and these kids would be doing well no matter which school they went to.
Then again, school is about more than just academics; it's also about socialization. On the other hand,what does socialization mean? Does it mean learning how to get along with human beings of all ages, or knowing how to behave in the artificial environment of school, spending most of the day among age peers exclusively? Does socializing your children have to mean having them learn how to handle bullying and cliques and other school yard nuisances?
You also have to ask yourself whether you really want to spend all day with your child without any healthy breaks from the pleasure of their company. On the other hand, is being away from them most of the day healthy?
On the other hand, I'm running out of hands.
So yeah. We don't really have to decide for a while, since Daniel won't be eligible to go to Jr K until next September. However, so far he's learned
When I think about how naturally all of the above and more has come up just from our daily lives and from questions that Daniel asks from a love of learning, I find myself wondering how much more difficult it would be to just keep teaching him at home until he's a lot older.
Of course, somewhat at odds with any idea of keeping Daniel at home in the future is the fact that he is currently at preschool. This summer during the height of the Daniel Rebellion he just got to be too much for my patience. We decided that he had to be taken care of by somebody who didn't feel like throttling him, at least a few mornings a week. Maybe if he was still at home all day everyday, all those airy-fairy ideas of homeschooling would just drift off. And so far, preschool has been great. After his first day I asked, "So Daniel, did you have a good time at preschool?"
"No." He said. My heart sank. "... I had a GREAT time at preschool."
So he's there 3 mornings a week, seems to be doing well and enjoying it a lot, and is much better behaved at home. It's a co-op preschool, which means that the parents help out about once every 5 weeks. The first time I went, Daniel was so proud! He kept telling all the other little kids "It's MY MOM'S turn today!!!" He also got a sticker that said VIP (which the kids get when their parents are on duty) and got to lead the other kids to the gym and other activities of exalted status. Funny to think that some day not too far in the future, having his parents around while his friends are present will be a source of mortification rather than pride.
In other news, Daniel has really gotten into computer games,including some games we're not too thrilled about. We used to have, in our B.C. (Before Children) days, a simple game called Rats on our computer. (summary: your garden is full of rats which you must exterminate faster than they reproduce). Daniel saw this game and was pretty fascinated, so we let him play it.
When we moved and got a new computer, we lost the game. Daniel was most upset until Chris told him they could probably find it on the Web, since it's shareware. They did, and downloaded it, and Daniel was thrilled. As were we, except for one teeny little problem. The new version has sound effects for everything, including the sounds of, um, rat reproduction. Imagine my consternation one day when I heard him talking to himself and periodically chanting "Ah-Ah-Ah-OOOh OOOh OOOh"
"What's that sound, Daniel?" I asked.
"Oh that's the sound of the rats getting married, Mama." he explained.
Golly, I can't wait for the preschool to call us about this.
He's also into a lot of other stuff that Chris and I like. Like Star Trek and Star Wars, for example. He's always pretending to be Annakin or Luke Skywalker, and making the rest of us into Obi-Wan, or Darth Vader, or Princess Leia, or, in Justin's case, the "Little Tiny Stormtrooper".
We also started reading books that I thought we wouldn't get to until much later, like maybe age 6-8 or so. Chris started with "Danny, the Champion of the World", and then "The Velveteen Rabbit". I tried Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but that didn't get too far. However, the Little House books have been a big hit so far. We even plan to make a miniature log cabin just like Pa did. And we took a trip to Pioneer Village, a sort of 1880's style village, where we got to look at mills and stores and stables and homes just like in the Little House books. And we talked about how life was different back then, how much work children had to do,and how men and women were expected to do different kinds of jobs. At one point I told him that in Laura's time, men weren't supposed to do any cooking because the women were supposed to do it for them. He started laughing uproariously, imagining, I'm sure, what our meals would be like if I did most of the cooking instead of Chris.
The funny thing about our kids is, we have one that wants toknow how gunpowder is made and one who would eat gunpowder if he saw it. One who says “Not exactly” and one who says “GUB!!”. One who knows that cows are herbivores, wolves are carnivores, and humans are omnivores, and one who soils himself on a regular basis. It's a strange house we live in.
At one point Daniel asked me what "wild" meant. I explained that wild animals are animals that don't know how to live with people - they don't know they shouldn't bite people or poop all over the house. Daniel thought about this and said, "Are babies wild?"
Sibling rivalry is still not an issue at our house (knock on wood). We've tried as much as possible to make sure Daniel doesn't feel too displaced by the baby, and to point outall the neat things that come with being a big brother. Although, I think we may have gone a bit too far telling Daniel that Justin was "his" baby. The other day I said something like "Oh, my poor baby, don't cry" and elicited an indignant "Hey! That's MY baby". So I had to explain the concept of"ours". Then Chris referred to Justin as "his" baby and Daniel indignantly told him "He's MY baby because MY Mama made him in her belly!" Daniel is somewhat unclear on the biological role of fathers inthe making of babies. Which is good - I definitely don't need him explaining to the preschool how babies are made.
Daniel is very protective too, which is really neat to watch, especially when he mimics me or Chris. One day Justin started crying in the back seat of the car and just as I was about to try to comfort him, I heard Daniel say,
"Justin, Justin, calm down! I'm right here, Justin! What's wrong Justin? Are you tired? Are you hungry? Why are you crying? You have little eyes and little ears and a little mouth and I'm here and Mama's here and you have so much to be thankful for, don't cry Justin" and he went on for a pretty long time. Justin eventually settled a bit and gazed at his big brother with a slightly puzzled look on his face. Like, the words are familiar, but why are they coming out of that little mouth?
Another night after bedtime Chris heard the baby cry through the monitor and went upstairs to get him. By the time he got to their room, Justin was fast asleep and Daniel was sitting next to him.
"What happened Daniel?"
"I put the blanket on him so that I could touch him without waking him up. But then he woke up so I patted his face and he went back to sleep." At this point Justin woke up, saw Daniel, sighed and went back to sleep.
Then when we were coming back from Calgary, at one point Justin was crawling on the ground at the Toronto airport, and an airport car came rolling by a little too close to Justin. Daniel leaped in front of Justin, held his arms out and yelled "STOP!! THAT'S MY LITTLE BROTHER!!" at the driver. The driver had already stopped, so neither of them was actually in any danger, but Daniel certainly didn't realize that. We were very impressed.
Chris generally sees his patients as people with problems, or sometimes as interesting cases or opportunities to learn. The fact that many of them are in various states of undress, after so long doing physical exams, is really pretty irrelevant. Except on very rare occasions when he has to do a physical on a truly stunning person who makes him have to remind himself that he's (a) a doctor and (b) married. (Or is that the other way around?)
Anyway, he was doing an examination on a "seriously lovely" young lesbian patient. He reminded himself that he was (a) a doctor, (b) married and (c) decidedly not her type. He was congratulating himself on keeping a totally professional clinical detachment to the young lovely, when she commented that when he palpated her stomach during the examination, that had created a physical response; she felt warmer, or flushed. Thinking this might indicate some sort of abdominal condition, before the words could be edited he asked her"... so it makes you hot when I do that?" and promptly wished hecould hit Rewind. So much for professional detachment.
On December 23, I turned 30. I took the opportunity to reflect on my life so far, and luckily was able to feel that I've done OK. I'm pretty much where I want to be. Of course, I look some other people my age and it's easy to feel that (to paraphrase Tom Lehrer) it's people like these that make you realize how little you've done with your life. For example, it is a sobering thought that by the time they were my age, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison had been dead for 3 years.
Chris, ever the sympathetic and supportive spouse, put together a great little family party for me with Daniel's help. He made a yummy dinner and got me a cake... decorated with dinosaurs. In frosting it said "One Last Joke". Thanks,Hon. You're all heart.
Also, I finally got over the worst bout of insomnia I've ever had. It lasted about a year, and finally needed medication to get rid of it. At one point during my war with sleeping, I went to see a shrink. We talked about my insomniac history, and at one point she asked if I noticed greater levels of sleep difficulty when I'm under stress. I said yes, generally, although not always; I've had very calm peaceful times in my life when I couldn't get to sleep to save my life, and horribly stressful times when I slept like a baby - and I don't mean waking up every 2 hours to cry. She asked if my life was stressful right now. I said yes, what with the new city and the kids and Chris working very long hours. I said "I know that this kind of schedule is the way things are in medicine, for the first year of residency anyway, and that it'll get better next year, but still..."
She says, "Well, you know, this is how your life is going to be, you know. You can't hold on to the hope that he'll eventually be working less hours, because he won’t."
"???!!!" I say
"This is the way his life is going to be. You have to come to terms with that. I find the most successful and happy spouses of doctors are the ones that just realize that their spouse is not going to be around and make their lives without them. If you keep holding on to the idea that a marriage involves seeing your partner almost every day, or having him around to help out with the children every so often... well, that's a sure recipe for disaster."
I'm sitting here, staring at her, seeing my marriage flash before my eyes. This goes against everything Chris has ever said about "the last year of Meds school and the first year of residency are tough, but then things calm down". And this is a psychiatrist telling me this, so I figure she'd know.
I slowly say, "Well, that's been my big fear. That this is the way our lives will be forever. It's pretty hard with him working between 60 and 100 hours a week, but he kept saying it would get better because he was in psychiatry..."
"Oh! He's in psychiatry! Oh! Well, yes, of course, it does get better then! I thought you said he was in internal medicine! No no no, forget everything I just said, ofcourse, of course, he's in psychiatry, that's fine, that's not the same at all, it'll calm down next year, of course, of course"
I wanted to shoot her. Silly twit nearly gave me a heart attack.
So yeah. So sleep isback, silly twit notwithstanding, and things are going much better. Part of what helped was that Chris went on leave for a few weeks, and then came back to work half-time. After the hellishness of the last year or so, part-time feels like a vacation. Hopefully he won't be part-time for too long, but I think it'll be nice to be able to live like normal people for a while at least, instead of just continuing with insane hours and a new routine every single month.
Half-time, for those who are interested, means that he'll be working half the hours, half the call, twice as long (i.e. two-month rotationsinstead of one month) and half the pay. That last part bites, especially when he'll be working half of 100 hour weeks (50 hours, for those whose moms didn't play with tangerines either) and earning a pittance. However. It sure beats 100-hour weeks for twice the pittance.
First winter in London. I don't know if this is normal or not, but as of today (January 23) we still have Canada geese flying south. Weird.
You know how you have a flock of geese, a pride of lions, a parliament of owls, a murder of crows? Apparently it’s also called an 'unkindness' of crows. I was woken up by a bunch of ^%$#$^ crows at 3:00 am one night and all I could think as I lay there listening to them was "an UNKINDNESS". I wanted to murder that unkindness.
You know what you should call a group of mismatched socks out of the dryer? A 'Solitude' of socks.
Oh! And we got a new car. This brings my total ownership of vehicles to 5, and the total number of vehicles I currently own to 4. Impressive, no?
OK, not so impressive when you consider that I've only ever paid for one of them. My first car was a hand-me-down from my mom, my current car was a wedding gift from my dad, I'm part-owner of my mom's current car only because the dealer said that way she could get the 'new graduate' discount, our motorcycle was a hand-me-down from a friend of Karen's, and now there's the new car. Which is actually leased.
But it just feels so decadent, so North American Dream, so Eighties, to say I own four vehicles.
We went to Niagara Falls, and Daniel and Chris were suitably impressed. I've heard that a lot of people are very disappointed when they get to Niagara Falls and they realize it's nothing but a big waterfall. I always think... well... heck, what did you expect? You know the name, Niagara Falls? What did you think you were going to see?
Christmas this year was a strange affair. Chris was working noon to midnight at Emerg on the 23rd, 24th, 25th and 26th, so all of our celebrations were done in the mornings. And the actual unwrapping of the present on Christmas morning was very bizarre. We expected the same whirlwind of frenzied unwrapping that we had last year, but instead it took about 2 hours. Daniel would unwrap something, then look at it, play with it, explain to us how it worked... and only go on to the next present after a lot of coaxing from us. It was kind of like Christmas in slow-motion.
One day, Daniel was sitting quietly staring off into space. Suddenly he said, slowly, like he was thinking really hard, "I think...(long pause) that Daddy knows (longer pause) EVERYTHING."
I had to tell him, "He'd like to think so, sweetie, but nobody really knows everything. Except Mama."
Well, there you go, that’s our life in a great big nutshell. Actually, it’s more like a conch shell than a nutshell.