the things they left behind

i've been a lazy blogger lately, mostly due to the fact that i haven't had much alone time on the computer. my son has decided that not only is 4:30am a fine and dandy time to wake up for good for the day, but also that he doesn't need to nap much more than an hour all day long. that leaves me with enough time to check my emails, throw the next load of laundry in, whip myself up something to eat, and inhale my food while cutting coupons for my next grocery trip. trust me, its super fun. anyhow, tonight i finally got my act together and got him into bed before 6pm and the little darling went to sleep ten times faster than he normally does when we keep him up later. baseball season has offically started, and my other darling (the not so little one) is watching the game downstairs, and i am so happy to be able to blog tonight. really, i am; i'm not being sarcastic at all. i've been looking forward to it.

as i've already written, my parents were here last week for their annual spring break visit. every year they drive down to oregon and spend a few nights in a seaside cottage there, then make their way down to san diego where we try and fit everything we want to do in one short week and desperately try not to think of saying goodbye again. this goodbye was harder for me than most. i'm not sure if its because i know that i won't be seeing them for another 5 months, or if it was just so nice to have them here that i really REALLY didn't want them to leave. at any rate, i allotted myself up to 3 days of funky sadness before i would have to snap out of it, and so far the snapping out of it part hasn't really been working that well. but it will. i've done this enough times to know.


my parents are the sort of houseguests who never arrive empty handed. since they drove down, they were able to stuff their little car with all sorts of happy treats for us. we got homemade raspberry and strawberry jam, ketchup chips, canadian chocolate bars, purdy's, the curtain rod from my old bedroom (our curtian rod was on its last legs and was seriously threatening to split in two), and enough reading material to last me....well, to last me for another few months! (by the way, i'm currently reading the book pictured called "the memory keepers daughter" by kim edwards and it is VERY good).



not only are my parents the sort of houseguests that bring us happy treats, but they are also the sort that help out wherever needed during their stay. my dad purchased and hung a clothesline for us in our backyard, which thrills me beyond belief. i feel so house-wife-ish whenever i hang our clothes out to dry. this was never really possible in our old house because we lived in such a dusty area, but our brand new "lawn" that the rain brought has kept the dust to a minimum, so i've been outside nearly every morning since, listening to the birds chirp away as i clip freshly washed clothes to the line. tristan is also a huge fan now that he's discovered he can play peekaboo behind the clothes. initially i was a tad concerned about the "softness factor" that would be lost when i quit using our electicity-hogging dryer, but, to be honest, i don't notice the roughness that much. and the scent of orange blossoms and lilac from the neighbors yard behind the fence seems to infuse itself into the linens, so that makes up for any lack of softness, in my books.


in order to keep our "lawn" from disappearing, they also bought us a sprinkler which i turn on every now and then to keep things green. my mom insisted on purchasing some gorgeous little flowers as well that we had fun planting one afternoon, all THREE of us. tristan took his job very seriously, scooping potting soil from the bag into the pots. i actually have that on video somewhere and will have to post it on his blog. my dad also spent nearly an hour one evening, painstakenly measuring, cutting, and taping aluminium foil to the inside of tristan's bedroom window. his room gets the hot afternoon sun beating down on it every single day and its so difficult to keep it dark and cool in there. we had layers upon layers of cardboard and blankets in his window in our meager attempts at blocking out the sun. layers no longer, my dad is a genius! tristan's room is now so dark that the other night i went to put him in his crib, but i couldn't find exactly where his crib was!



they also bought tristan his very first lawn chair that he's still working on getting himself into. he hasn't really figured out how to sit down in it without climbing in as if he's going upstairs, but he's beginning to get the hang of it. once he's in it, he sits there so proudly with his little feet dangling, smiling from ear to ear. he began saying the word "up" for the first time last week as well; my mom and i were at the playground with him and he was saying "uh, uh" whenever he wanted help going "up" the stairs. now he says it everytime we go upstairs.



we went to the wild animal park, wandered around seaport village, had dinner at a "real" mexican restaurant, as requested by my father (canada's mexican food really sucks), played mexican train, and had a fabulous easter sunday celebration at josh's folk's house with his family. tristan did a pretty good job finding easter eggs and the americans had their first taste of authentic mennonite paska.

the morning that they drove away, i was stoic until the door was closed behind them and then i turned to josh, buried my face in his chest and just cried and cried. in an ideal world, their little town in british columbia would be smack dab next to our little town in southern california. rather than tuesday morning phone calls, we would have tuesday morning coffees together in person. there would be no need to send countless pictures of tristan via email or write a detailed discription every week of all the new things he's doing. i wouldn't have to show tristan pictures of his grammie and grandad and aunties and uncles in hopes that he'll recognize their faces when he next sees them. i'm not complaining, only lamenting, and trust me when i say i don't allow myself to think on these things much because of the throbbing pain it brings. and yet, i have so many things to be thankful for in the life i lead here. i chose this life and if i had the choice all over again, i wouldn't change a thing. it is now time to snap out of this funky sadness, it is time to dry the tears from my eyes, to look forward to being reunited with my family in 5 more months, but also, more importantly, to enjoy and cherish every single day until then.

all gone

how is it that 6 days can feel so much more like only 2? my parents have left the land of warmth and are apparently returning to some snow. i don't have the energy to blog, though i'm going to soon. i did, however post a rather entertaining video on tristan's blog just now. josh is playing poker, and i'm off to go read in bed until my eyelids can no longer stay open. goodnight.

happy easter

my mom and dad arrived yesterday and will be staying for a whole week! my mom is downstairs making lovella's paska recipe, tristan is napping, my dad is out walking and enjoying the warm weather, and my dear husband is relaxing in front of the tv. i'm going to follow my nose down to the kitchen to see if i can snag a bit of sweet easter deliciousness there before joining josh and enjoying the rest of my day.

happy easter everyone! i won't be posting again until my parent's have left. :)

mom-by-love

the other day, i was having a terrible time with tristan. he's still an early riser and i'm beginning to just accept that our day will always start at 5:30am. however, his naps have begun to get wonky again. that particular day, he napped for only half an hour and woke up crying very hard. his cries escalated until i went into his room to try to soothe him back to sleep by rubbing his back and singing softly. after 30 minutes of singing, i ran out of songs and decided that it was going to be a short nap day whether i liked it or not, so i got him out of bed. he did not stop crying. i took him outside, which ALWAYS cheers him up. he did not stop crying. i offered him some milk. his cries escalated into screams. i tried distracting him with toys, his favourite teddy bear, tickling his toes....his cries continued and he was beginning to sound hoarse. finally, after another 30 minutes of straight crying, i put in a baby praise dvd and it was as if a switch flipped. he calmed down immediately and just sat in my lap, eyes glued to the screen.


it was then that my mom in law, chris called, just to say hi. i told her how my day had been so far and she said "why don't you bring tristan over here?" it was the perfect suggestion. tristan and i spent the afternoon with his gran and gramps, toddling around the backyard in the sunshine in between games of peekaboo. though it always takes tristan time to warm up to anyone besides josh and i, by the end of the afternoon, he was running to gran and giving her kisses. we had a blast and i was reminded again how blessed i am to have such amazing in-laws.

i can remember the first time i spoke to chris. josh and i were at school in england and i talked to his mom and dad on the phone briefly. i felt relieved after speaking to them because they sounded so down-home-friendly and not snooty at all! i met them that summer when i flew out to san diego to surprise josh as he arrived from europe. the only people who knew about the surprise were his sister and brother in law, so his parents were just as surprised as he was to see a strange girl come flying at him with her arms wide open! i was so nervous to be staying at their house, especially since they had no clue that they were expecting a guest, but they made me feel so at home and welcomed. right away it felt just like family.

my mom and i have always been very close and i don't think i really realized how difficult it would be to move so far away from her. i honestly can't imagine how much more difficult it would have been if my mom in law hadn't have been the sweet and caring individual that she is! every wednesday she would meet up with her daughter, jessica and they'd have some mother-daughter time with jessica's kids. right away i was invited to spend those days with them, which was always something i looked forward to before i was able to begin working. they never made me feel as if i was intruding on their special time at all.



chris has also taught me a lot in the way of penny-pinching. proudly frugal, she's always let me know if there is a great sale going on at a certain store, and saves coupons for the brands i like. every time she sees a penny, she picks it up and rolls the extra coins to give to her grandkids for their savings accounts. her christmas stockings are legendary! she finds deals all year long and every christmas we each get a huge shopping bag full of goodies with our stocking draped over the top! her easter baskets are something to behold as well; i'm looking forward to getting ours this weekend.

since having tristan, i think my appreciation for my in-laws has only increased. grandparents are the only other people in the world that can come close to loving our children as much as we do. friends and other relatives love them dearly, but grandparents don't have their own kids to tend to anymore, so every little giggle and smile and milestone is noticed and cherished by them. i love watching my little boy being so loved by his gran and grandpa, it warms my heart like nothing else. thank you, chris for being such an awesome "mom-by-love" to me. i love you.

the pepper tree dance

about 15 minutes ago i was sitting on the couch with my boy, watching a little bit of a "baby praise" dvd, winding down before his nap. i was playing with his toes, which i was rewarded for with giggles, then i rested my chin on the top of his head and just breathed in his scent. i was instantly transported back to when he was just new, and his head was so tiny and dark and i used to smell the top of his head, believing that there had never been a sweeter scent. he no longer smells like baby, but the scent of little boy that he carries is just as sweet. over and over i look at him and think, "how is it that he is already a little boy?"

14 months have passed since i gave birth to him and at times, those 14 months seem like only a fleeting moment. of course, while living in those 14 months (especially the first 6 months) time felt like it sometimes stood still while i was waiting for him to "grow out" of his difficult stages.

when i look at him now, i could just cry with how much i love him. when he's asleep, there are times that i miss him! the world is opening up to him and he's beginning to make discoveries all on his own.

the other day we went for a walk to the grocery store. we took the long way, past the cows in the field (mommy said "mooooo" endlessly while tristan just stared at them with a bit of a frown on his face) and then past the little pond to feed the ducks swimming there. it was a warm, breezy day and i lifted tristan out of his stroller to let him walk for awhile on the sidewalk. thrilled at having a bit of freedom, he shouted with delight and began zig-zagging down the sidewalk, pausing freqently to look at a flower here, pick up a stone there. i was getting quite a bit ahead of him, so i called out "tristan!" and he came trotting towards me, eyes glowing, and fists full of rocks.

then something else caught his eye. it was the long, lacy leaves of a pepper tree hanging near the sidewalk with bright pink seeds tempting him to touch them. i stood there and watched and, just then, the breeze picked up and suddenly the branch of the tree began lifting up and down and the leaves all shook and quivered. tristan let go of the rocks he was holding and, very gently took hold of one of the leaves as if to say "may i have this dance?" and then he began bouncing his little bottom up and down, dancing with the tree! he looked at me and grinned so big and i just stood there, partly laughing, partly trying to swallow the lump in my throat because it was a moment so precious and i knew that it would be gone in an instant and i didn't want to forget any detail of it.

and so i am writing it down here, in an attempt to freeze time and, once my little boy is grown and no longer all mine, i'll be able to remember that there was a day when he was so full of childish innocence, that he saw a tree dancing and decided to join in.

i'm running but i can't catch up

last week my friend christy was visiting from canada. we were talking about periods of loneliness in our lives and how things have changed so much for both of us. i told her about how homesick i was during my first year of marriage. i had no green card, no job, no vehicle, no friends. i can remember sitting at home, trying to think of things to do for that day and quietly crying. i knew that things would change for me, but it definitely took time. eventually, i got my green card and, after a few trials and errors, found a job that i liked. i started this blog, which was a huge outlet for me and also a vital connection to my old friends back home who i missed so much. we bought my little blue honda civic, which i still drive and i slowly began making new friends.

i've always had a difficult time making friends. i prefer quality over quantity, and quality is difficult to find when you don't really know the person. when i read back in my archives and find posts like this one, the awkward feelings come flooding back to me. of course, in hindsight, i can now see that i wasn't really doing my part to go out of my way to make friends, but being an Introvert Terrified of Rejection sort of put a damper on enthusiasm.

so, as i said earlier, my friend christy visited last week. during that time i didn't do much in the way of calling friends, checking emails, facebook, reading blogs or (obviously) writing blogs. it felt great to have a week "off" of the computer. and then christy left and i found that catching up wasn't the 1 hour ordeal that i thought it would be. i'm not sure i'm ever going to catch up! i had emails buried beneath piles of other emails in my inbox that i hadn't responded to, phone numbers that i had lost, invitations that i hadn't rsvp'd to in time and many, many, many blogs to read. in my overwhelmed state, i took a deep breath and suddenly realized the amazing blessings that God has given to me in the way of friends. i have friends! some i've never met in person, some i haven't seen in years, some i talk to every week. but they're all people i care enough about to want to know what is happening in their lives and they want to know what is happening in mine! no awkwardness included. i am so thankful.

since its been awhile and there's been all sorts of random things happening around here, i'm going to write the rest of this post in point form.

*a couple of weeks ago josh, who was already feeling sick, suddenly began having intense chest pain that radiated into his left arm! it was around 9:30pm and tristan was already in bed. after a few phone calls and searches online to see how serious this was, we decided that he needed to go to the hospital to get checked out. josh's folks came over to stay here with our sleeping little boy and i drove josh down to the nearest hospital 45 min away. we didn't emerge from the emergency room until 4 hours later. everything took a long time, but thankfully after an ekg, x-ray, a shot and some icky medicine, it was determined that his heart was fine (thank GOD!) and that he was developing the beginning stages of pneumonia in his left lung, hence the chest pain. he got on antibiotics right away and only missed 1 day of work. (plus plenty hours of sleep)

*while christy was here, tristan got a cold with his usual sniffles and coughs and all-around grumpiness. the only difference this time was that we could hear his little lungs wheezing when he breathed, and his breathing seemed to be a little more laborious than normal. christy and i took him down to his pediatrician and it was determined that he'd need an inhaler. the dr. said that babies are allowed to wheeze once and that could be it, but if he wheezes again, then yup, its asthma. i'm SO thankful that christy was with me. she works with kids and has asthma herself, so she was so calm about the whole thing, whereas if i had been by myself, i know i would have panicked. tristan is now feeling much better and no longer needs his inhaler :)

*after dropping christy off at the airport on thursday, tristan and i had a little "date" down at san diego's sea port village. its a cute little area right on the water with shops and live music and fun restaurants. josh proposed to me there over looking the water. so, tristan and i had a delicious lunch, then had fun wandering in the shops and chasing pigeons (ok, so i had fun in the shops and tristan had fun with the pigeons). though he's normally a little stinker in the car, whining and fussing until we get home, this time he actually giggled to himself back there and was happy as a clam. it was a lovely day.

*i gave tristan his first haircut the other day. oh dear. it looks AWFUL. i did it while he was in the bathtub so that his hair would be wet and so he'd be distracted by the toys. how hard can it be to trim some bangs and sides? well, it turns out that its very difficult because i will NEVER EVER touch my child's hair with scissors ever again. that's all i'm going to say about that. i may post a picture of his new do on his blog, if i feel brave enough to do so.


*josh and i were able to go on a much-needed date yesterday. joshs' folks watched tristan at their house while we escaped and saw the movie "juno". we both enjoyed it IMMENSELY. since the last 2 dvd's we saw were "gone baby gone" and "we own the night",we were thrilled to finally laugh our heads off. (i cried a bit too, at the end and suddenly got a huge surge of baby fever, but i'm happy to report that i've fully recovered). it was just SO funny and clever! and it had a lot of heart. i now want the soundtrack.

* i sadly had to return my skinny b!tch book to the library today, but i spent a good deal of time re-reading many of the chapters before it was due. i'm not following their advice to the letter, but i'm definitely eating and feeling better. my goal isn't so much to lose weight as it is to become more healthy. i no longer read the fat grams or calories on each box of food that i pick up at the grocery store. instead, i simply read the list of ingredients to make sure that everything i'm ingesting is God-created, simple and healthy food. its really not that hard! breakfast and lunch are a snap since i'm only making those meals for myself, but dinner is still a bit of a challenge since my husband isn't exactly on the same page as me, food-wise. so, i'm just wondering if anyone out there has some good meal ideas. please comment and let me know what they are! first, they need to be EASY, secondly, they need to contain NO RED MEAT and thirdly, they need to TASTE GOOD! i took some vegetarian cookbooks out of the library today, but they're a little bit intimidating with their pictures of gourmet dishes, so i feel as if i'm slightly out of my league.

okay, this post is long enough. i'm off to enjoy a spinach salad...