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{Actually, I make no guarantees that the segues will be brilliant. But whatever.}
My last post was a downer, I know. But now! I am able to lighten up for the following reasons:
1. I have awesome friends/family/Di-hards. THANK YOU for your sympathy and support, and offers of help. I hope I haven’t worried you that I would become a baby-shaker or something. The other day, as I was out for a friend’s birthday dinner (sans children!) a small group of my friends informed me that they will be taking both my kids away for a large chunk of next Saturday, in order for me to have an epic nap. How blissful. (I love you girls. Thank you. I wish every frustrated mom had friends like you.)
Speaking of support…
2. My wonderful Hubbibi, who has been sharing E’s room so they could both get relatively uninterrupted sleep, offered to switch children with me for a while and do the tough part of getting Baby A back to sleep snackless. On the one hand, I thought gleefully about sleeping. On the other hand, I started immediately (prematurely) pining for my snuggly baby girl. I decided to get tough with her, and it seems to be helping (knock firmly on real wood even though I’m not superstitious). For the last four nights, I have been not feeding her until I determine it’s time. She complains loudly but doesn’t usually cry for real, and she mostly goes back to sleep without much intervention.
By the second night, she’d remembered how to do 4.5 hours in a row. It makes me think everything’s going to be fine if I can just stay the course. I AM MOTIVATED.
Speaking of my girlie munchkin…
3. She has had her first solids! About three weeks ago, we tried the first rice cereal. It was earlier than we expected to start (4.75 months), but all the look-fors were there, especially her watching us eat like a hawk. (Not that we eat like hawks. Boy, that’d be weird.) She has gotten better at swallowing the cereal, and gets pretty excited about it. Also, in the spirit of Baby-Led Weaning (thanks, MHM!) we sometimes give her a piece of a veggie that’s long and firm enough for her to explore and practice on without danger of choking.
Baby + practice veggies = CUTE. Turns out she’s a cucumber monster, like her brother.
Speaking of her brother…
4. E had his first visit to kindergarten! Not at the same school he’ll attend in September, but still. We went with Baby A to my school for a visit during the lunch break, and E’s pal Mr. A invited him back to his classroom while the baby was schmoozing with my other colleagues. When the bell rang to end recess, it took a few minutes for me to get back to the classroom, and when I arrived, there was E, playing on the carpet with the other kids and looking like he belonged there. As Mr. A himself commented, he’s totally ready for school.
Speaking of happy-sad things…
5. I’ve just finished watching the whole series of Being Erica on Netflix, and now I’m all sad it’s over. Like, I totally cried during the series finale. It was a damn good show (about a girl who gets a therapist who can send her back in time to fix her regrets). Thumbs up on the acting, the concept, the blossoming storylines, the character development, the era-appropriate soundtrack and wardrobe choices, the gay wedding, the ultra-Canadianness, and a whole series of very cute guys. The best one is Irish.
Speaking of cute guys…
6. I discovered something cool! Remember this guy?
It’s Jean Dujardin, who won the Best Actor Oscar in 2012, for his speechless performance in The Artist. After this year’s Oscar party, whilst leafing through my Oscar magazine, I saw a photo of him, much like this one, from last year’s red carpet:
And the light bulb went on! Because of the woman he’s with, I realized that that guy is this guy:
No wonder he looked familiar. The woman is his wife, Alexandra Lamy. She looks exactly the same as she did twelve years ago, when I lived in France and watched Un gars, une fille whenever I was home in the evenings. Episodes were less than ten minutes long, just little sketches of life as a young couple, and they were super-cute and funny. (The concept actually originated in Quebec, and now there are versions in many countries.) France loved “Chouchou” and “Loulou”, but at the time the two actors were each committed to other people. So this is how I found out that after I left France, they actually fell in love with each other and ended up married! HOW ADORABLE IS THAT. (Or home-wrecky, depending on how you look at it.)
Speaking of stuff that’s cool (I know, my segues are becoming seriously mediocre)…
7. I think it’s possible that I AM COOL.
Hahaha. No, just kidding, but I did carry on an uber-hip conversation with two male baristas (whose combined age was probably about five years more than mine) at Second Cup today. They were talking about a certain silly viral video (below) and singing the riff from the song, but didn’t know its name. Since I was a kid in the 80s, I knew it to be “Careless Whisper”; I fully remember a time when it was new music, sharing the airwaves with “I Just Called to Say I Love You”, “Hip to Be Square”, and “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car”. I mentioned that George Michael’s video is legendary-level 80s drama, so they told me about the sexy sax man.
And then, we totally commiserated over the dangers of watching YouTube late at night. Boo-yah. I can converse relevantly (?) with 20-year-olds.
Speaking of me thinking I’m cool enough to talk to people…
8. I have been accepted to speak at a local Ignite event in April.
From the website: “Ignite is a geek event in over 100 cities worldwide. At the events Ignite presenters share their personal and professional passions, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds for a total of just five minutes.”
A good friend of mine is on the organizing committee and suggested I submit an idea (thanks, L!) and… I did. (I will tell you about my idea later.) And they said I can come! And now I’m rather freaked out! Because if you watch Ignite talks on the web, you find that these people talk without notes. Yep. Talking without notes to a classful of students is not the same as talking without notes to a whole audience of adults plus whoever’s watching the live stream.
But I figure it’s good to do scary stuff, right? They say you should “do something that scares you every day”, but I figure about twice a year is good enough.
So there’s my wee list. Life is not so bad.
Life’s an easy road, with people beside you to share the load.
-Bret McKenzie
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[subscribe2]
All this is good to hear! You can do the Ignite thing – no prob. Notes? you don’t need ’em. And I don’t know about cool, but you will probably ALWAYS be able to converse relevantly with people younger than you. Just keep your ears and eyes open and relevancy swoops right in.
Cheers for the beautiful baby and the wonderful friends! And remember our offer to take E away for a day or so at a time, if that works.
Yeah… I know I can talk for that long, it’s just a question of whether I can be coherent and manage not to choke on nerves.
And Ben mentioned the offer – thank you very much! I will take you up on it ANY TIME it’s good for you. He was just saying yesterday that he wanted to go see Grammie and Papa.
You’re cute. I love you! And I’m so glad you feel motivated re: your bébé. She is worthy of your effort and you and S are worthy of a medal! Keep that beautiful chin up.
MWA MWA MWA MWA MWA MWA!
(P.S. It is impossible to believe that it was 12 years ago you were in France. How can this be??)
YOU’RE cute! xoxoxoxo And yes. Twwwwelllllve. Holy moly, we’re gettin’ up there.
You made me laugh! I’m glad you’re feeling better 🙂
Yay! I’m glad you got a chuckle, and hope you had a good night last night. Ours was rough and felt like regressing… but then, this morning there’s an actual tooth breaking the surface! So I guess that’s her excuse.
I think you are very cool. Were the baristas humming the Careless Whisper riff, or was the relating to something on the radio? I think the first time I saw the video for that song was in Ms. Reynolds’ class in Grade 6. Like most things.
That is a very very cute cucumber picture.
Do you want us to come to your ignite thing? (Or can we even?) Or do you don’t?
Yeah, the one guy was singing it quite soulfully, and said it had been in his head all night. (Not surprising.) I think they might have been housemates or something – or at least buds who share YouTube clips.
Of course you can come! If you wanna. I think it would help to have some people I love in the audience.
p.s. Erica looks weirdly tan there. But Adam just looks bloody hot, as usual.
WORD.
p.p.s – your Jean Dujardin moment is like my Eddie Redmayne moment! Proving that we are both cool. I mean, “super-cool” and “brilliant,” to call on local dialects.
We ARE both cool. Superly.