Wild in the City

The end of the boob…

So it seems that I have weaned my son. At 2 and a half, many will say that it was more than time. And to tell you the truth, I’m not even really sad about it. It happened quite naturally: I have been sent to work at VANOC for the duration of the Olympics, which forces me to leave at a specific time in the morning (no more “you come in when you want” work situation). Our boy stopped napping in the afternoon, so he needs to sleep longer at night. With all that combined, I have barely seen him in the morning all of last week, and yesterday I even had to leave while he was still sleeping.

And so with the change of the routine, I stopped breastfeeding him. It just happened. He didn’t even ask me - I guess he didn’t think about it, as we were running to have breakfast as soon as he woke up. And now a week later I fear the day when he will think about it again, because I will have to say no. It is too good an occasion to wean him not to take it. I mean, I can’t go on breastfeeding him forever. So it may as well be now when it happens naturally. He’s had a good run at it: most kids are weaned way before their second birthday, which was the goal I had in mind given the recommendation by the WHO. And our boy was so attached to his morning snack that I was really wondering how I would ever manage to wean him.

Well, it seems to be over now.  I’m glad, I really am. I just need to convince myself that I am. Because it also means the end of something that had been going on for 30 months. The end of a special relationship, something that nobody but me could give him, something he obviously enjoyed that came from me and me alone. And of course, it also means that my son is growing up - which is also evidenced by his renewed interest in potty training.

So I guess I am a little bit sad. But just a little. That is why we have kids, after all, isn’t it? To see them grow and become increasingly independent until they leave.  And besides, my boy will still hold my hand, even in public, and likes a cuddle once in a while. So I’ll concentrate on what I can still enjoy and say goodbye to breastfeeding. For now…

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Underwear, really?

Our son’s love of underwear didn’t last. At the end of the day, he was already asking for his diaper back. I suspect he’s just lazy and found that sitting on the potty every 30 minutes was just too much work - and too much of a distraction from his play. So he started peeing in his training pants. The pants are made to hold one small pee, so it wasn’t different enough from his diaper to make our boy overly uncomfortable.

We figured that we didn’t have enough training pants to change him with every pee, so we went back to diapers. We’ll get him some real underwear soon, and then when the pee runs down his legs maybe he’ll get it. That remains to be seen. But on the bright side, so far, he has continued pooing in the potty. As much as I love cloth diapers, I have to say that I don’t miss cleaning poopy ones. Just this little change makes a huge difference.

So for now I’ll accept the partial potty training and count myself lucky. After all, he’s not quite two and a half, yet. I know that a lot of kids potty train earlier, but then a lot of them (especially boys) potty train much later, too. So I’m taking it in strides. I have so little time for my family these day’s, it’s just not worth the fight!

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Underwear!

Yesterday, our boy suddenly asked to wear underwear. Well, it wasn’t that sudden; Sunday we went for a hike with friends who have a boy the same age as ours, and they were talking about how he wears underwear when at home and diapers when out. Our son must have heard it. Anyway, we had one training pant, so Zak put it on him with great expectations of future messes to clean. Well lo and behold, he stayed dried pretty much all afternoon and evening.

He already used the potty regularly when we asked him to, which we would do when we changed him or before naps or bedtime. But he had never gone without a diaper and he had never asked to use the potty himself. So yesterday we put him on the potty every 30 to 45 minutes with great success. Then after supper, suddenly, he said he needed to use the potty. I found that he had started to pee in his pant, but caught himself in time and finished in the potty. We were really proud of our son!

Of course, after that, we were stuck since we have only one training pant. So we promised him that he could go out with Zak today to buy some more. He was delighted, especially since the store that sells training pants also has toys he can play with! When he went to bed, he was still talking about how he would go buy underwear today.  Trying to convince him not to get up again after going to bed, I mentioned that the faster he fell asleep, the faster tomorrow would come. I never thought it would work, but for the first time in months, our boy stayed in bed and slept through the night.

When he woke up at 6:30 and I said “Hello, it’s morning”, the first thing out of his mouth was: “Now we can go buy underwear!”

Who would have thought that underwear could be so much fun? Well, ok, lots of people, but usually to be fun they need to be black lace or something! But our boy is proud of himself and proud to be a big boy now. And so are we!

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Canadian man killed in bus crash in Argentina

I’m a little late in the news, but I found about this late and then I forgot to write about it…

Do you remember that bus crash? It was back in March. I heard about it on the radio, but they didn’t mention the name of the victim and besides, that kind of stuff happens all the time. Two Canadians killed in the sinking of a ferry here, one Canadian killed in a plane crash there. I always think, who cares that there were Canadians?  Am I supposed to feel more strongly about this even because a Canadian was killed in it? There are more than 30 millions of us. I’m not any closer to this victime than I would be to a Hungarian or a Mexican man killed in a crash.

But this case was different. As my father told me later, the man killed in that specific crash was my great-uncle, my grandmother’s brother. I never knew him well and I hadn’t seen him in years, but all of a sudden it changed my outlook on this strategy. My great-uncle, a retired judge, was very active in humanitarian causes. He was travelling with his wife of God know how many years, and they exchanged seats shortly before the crash. I don’t remember why, maybe he or she wanted to look out the window. Minutes later, he was dead and she was struck with a major case of survivor’s guilt. Not to mention the grief.

We never say it enough: enjoy every minute of your life, and make sure you tell your loved ones that you love them. A lot. All the time. You never know which day will be your last. You never know if you’re going to have lots of time to enjoy retirement or not.

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So sad!

Our son loves Duplos, those bigger Legos made for toddlers. We have quite the collection already, but Zak loves them too, and with the winter months he has been spending a little bit more time inside trying to entertain our 2-year-old, so he wanted more. Of course, our son is always happy with more toys, too. So Zak went on eBay and found some nice sets for sale for a decent price. We got one delivered yesterday, but we wanted to keep some for Christmas, so we didn’t give them to our boy right away.

After he had gone to bed, we took the box out and started digging in it to see what was there, sorting out what was going to be kept hidden. Then suddenly, we started hearing some bawling coming from our son’s room. I ran upstairs to find our little boy sitting in his bed, his pillow and his pajamas completely wet with tears. He looked at me and said, mortified:

- Papa is playing Legos without me!

Boy, did I ever feel cheap! So I said that Papa was not playing (which was true), that he was simply putting the toys away (which was false). And I cuddled him until he calmed down, put him back to bed with a hug and a kiss and went back downstairs. Needless to say, we waited for a while more before we put away the new Duplos.

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Christmas is fun

Our boy loves Christmas. He keeps talking about “the man who will come at Christmas” (he forgets his name), and he sings Christmas songs to the top of his lungs. Yells may be more accurate:

- Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, we’re going into the sleigh.

True, he’s mixing up the different carols together. But eh, he’s only two! And he dances to the songs he sings, too. When we asked what he would like Santa to bring him on Christmas, he asked for chocolates. Probably because we have an advent calendar with chocolates, so he may thinks that’s Santa’s doing also.  My bet is he’ll change his tune when he realizes that Santa can also bring toys. But we’ll make sure he doesn’t forget the chocolate this year…

I can’t wait to put out some milk and cookies for Santa. Actually, it will not be milk, but eggnog (which in our house we call “chicken milk”, the literal translation of the French name of the drink). Before I moved here, I thought eggnog was a myth, something they drank in movies or stories, but the idea seemed so gross to me that I was appalled when I found out Zak actually liked that concoction.  I’m warming up to it slowly: it’s not bad, but it still seems wrong somehow. Our boy, of course, loves it (could have something to do with the amount of sugar it contains), and we promised we would leave some out for Santa. He must get sick of milk, after a while!

Anyway, there’s only 10 days left now before Christmas. And our shopping is mostly done. That’s a miracle!

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Summary of my work week…

Well, that was a few weeks ago, but I forgot to post it…

Monday: Hi Sophie, client A asked if we could deliver project B earlier than planned. We’ve already said yes. I know it shows in the task manager that this change will have you do 20 hours of overtime this weekend, but it will take you less time than planned, right? Of course, you will have to do some overtime this weekend in order for us to meet the new deadline we agreed to without asking for your opinion. But not too much overtime, we hope…

Tuesday: Miss N, who was doing half of project B, has been “volunteered” for another, more important mission. She will be busy all day tomorrow for something that has to do with the Olympics, so it has priority. We found a contractor to do her half of project B, and we gave them a part of your half, too, so you’re off the hook for overtime. Actually, you even have free time now according to the task manager. So here are projects C, D and E. You’ll have time to do them, right?

Wednesday: Well, it seems like Miss N will be stuck with this Olympics project for the foreseeable future, so you’ll have to take on projects F, G and H that she was supposed to do this week and next. I’m sorry for the overtime you’ll have to do this weekend.

Thursday: Miss P is sick and she was supposed to do projects I and J today. You’ll have to do them. But it’s ok, because Miss N will be here tomorrow after all, so she’ll be able to take back project F and G. Or at least one of those. We think. We’ll know for sure tomorrow. In the meantime, try to ignore what the task manager tells you about all the overtime you’ll have to do. Oh, and by the way, the work we sent to contractors? Yeah, project B, but also projects K, L and M? We had problems with our email, so the work was never sent, and the contractors didn’t know it was coming, so we just found out today. That means we have to postpone the contractor’s deadline, because he now has one or two days less to do the work. But it will be done in time for the client’s deadline, it just means you’ll have less time for quality insurance next week. A lot less time.

Friday: Guess what? Miss N is still stuck on the Olympics project today, in the end. So you’ll keep all your projects, plus project O that we thought she’d be able to do today. But she’ll be here on Monday, at least we think she will, so she should be able to do project F. At least it’s likely. We’ll see on Monday. Try to have a nice weekend while ignoring that if things stay as they are, you have about 60 hours of work to do next week…

And then people laugh at public servants, saying that they are lazy and never work. Well, some are (I’ve seen it), but let me tell you: this week, I’ve earned my salary, if only for the accumulated stress.

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