Tomorrow will be my last day of breastfeeding Simon. Actually, it may have been today, because he isn't too interested all of a sudden. It was easier than I expected. I just keep reminding myself that having a baby is about way more things that how you feed him/her. Jeff and I will mark the occasion by dropping the kids off at my parents' place for a few hours, then going out to the Little India Cafe to enjoy amazing food and cold beer (two of my favourite things that I've been avoiding for more than a year).
Simon has graduated to a new car seat because he's too tall for his infant seat. He still has to face the rear of the car though, so whoever is in the passenger seat will have their knees up around their ears until we can move this new, huge, seat to the forward-facing position when he turns one. Unfortunately, there isn't much we can do about that. Safety first as they say.
I spent two hours at the passport office yesterday. I waited patiently in line for about 75 minutes...with Simon (who was smiling and 'talking' to the teenaged kid next to us, who was soooooo not into babies). I finally got to a wicket and processed my application, then Jeff's, then handed him Simon's. "Sorry to tell you this, but we can't accept this photo." WHAT? Apparently, both earlobes need to be showing, and you couldn't see Simon's left one. I could feel red hot burning rage bubbling up inside me. I said "you expect me to go and get another photo, then stand in line for another hour to submit it....do you want to take care of my baby while I do that?" I think I scared the guy, because he went ahead and processed everything, then directed me across the street to a place that does photos. Then, all I had to do was bring it back and hand it in without waiting in line.
Two hours and many burst brain cells later, I was home. I want a tax dollar refund on whatever it is I give the damn passport office. Sheesh.
Now to totally change the topic, I LOVE this campaign. Finally, an advertiser with some vision.
I'm teaching a class at Algonquin on Tuesday night about nonprofit ethics. How interested do you think the class will be when their internal clocks say it's 9:30pm, and the U.S. election results are coming in? Ya, I thought so too. If anyone can think of any good ethics/election jokes, let me know. I'll need some ammunition to keep everyone awake.
Why do we have daylight savings anyway (she asks as, for the second day in a row, she's up at 5am with Simon)?
I just realized this morning that, when I go to California, Simon is going to want to sleep from 3:30pm to 3am, and have his naps at 6am and 10am. Ugh.
There have been a lot of changes here this week. Simon is now napping, without protest, twice a day. He usually falls asleep around 9:30am (for an hour or two) and 1:30pm (for two or more hours). He's done this consistently for the past three days, after a few days in which he did it, but screamed a bit first. So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will stick.
I now have all sorts of time on my hands. For the past five months, I've been able to accomplish absolutely nothing during the days. Simon would only sleep in my arms or in the stroller, which meant that I didn't get a break. On Friday, my neighbour was laughing at me because I was just standing on the front lawn trying to figure out what to do with myself. I ran to the house every 10 seconds thinking that Simon was waking up (our monitor no longer works with batteries, just the plug). It's a very weird feeling I tell you.
The other dramatic change is that I'm weaning Simon. We're down to two feedings a day (morning and night), and will try to wean him completely by the end of the week. This was a very hard decision for me to make and I'm feeling quite emotional about it. However, there are good reasons that I need to wean him. I'm actually quite proud that I was able to nurse him for five months. I almost gave up a number of times, and it was certainly never easy. I got him off to a good start though I'll miss it terribly.
We had a lovely Halloween. There was one small crisis this morning when a calf at the Experimental Farm tried to eat Devon's Swan Lake Barbie dress, but my mother managed to clean all the slobber off and there are only a few nibbled pieces. I took Devon out trick or treating ( I missed last year because I was away at a notorious board meeting in Whistler). She wasn't all that interested in going to people's houses, but really enjoyed absorbing the atmosphere. We spent a long time sitting on my parents' steps looking at all the kids come and go (and Piccadilly Avenue gets A LOT of kids...there were line-ups out to the street at most of the houses).
All in all, a good week, although an emotional one for me.
