Way, way North/Lola and Mommy's Chisasibi Adventure

Oof, its been forever. The last month has been a complete whirlwind and there just hasn't been much time at all for blogging... I almost don't even know where to begin. Since Lola turned 10 months old on July 24th, I feel obligated to write a summary of her time as a 9 month old baby but theres just so much more to say before that...For one, we weren't even remotely close to home on Lola's 10 month birthday but rather up North.

Way, way up North.

For one incredible weekend, Lola and I visited Uncle Adrien, Aunty Vanessa, and her two favourite cousins Zac and Noah in Chisiasibi, QC.

Adrien and Vanessa have been living in Chisiasibi for FOUR YEARS now, I can't believe it took me this long to go visit! Truth be told it is a bit of a journey but at the same time, not really at all. I mean, no more a journey than some other trips we've ventured on in terms of air time and flight connections. But what did make it truly a journey was, well, pretty much everything else. And thats what I absolutely loved about our trip.

Its one thing to see pictures, to know that A & V have a teepee in their backyard, to hear about how the Cree people are so welcoming. Its a whole 'nother thing to experience it first hand.

Their house and the street they live on is kind of what I imagined living on a reservation to be like. I loved the sameness of each home along the curved street, there was just something about it.

And I loved hearing about the history of how the town came to be - how Hydro Quebec and the Cree negotiated to both benefit from the land, how it changed the way Cree were living, and how thats impacted everything today. A little interesting anecdote - when I asked how insanely high their heating bill is in the Winter, Adrien replied that "people don't really pay their hydro bills around here." Turns out the white man once again failed to keep all their promises...so not paying what I can only imagine are exorbitantly high hydro bills only seems fair.

It was a greatly timed trip too. We arrived on Adrien'd 34th birthday and went out to grab groceries to celebrate with a dinner of burgers. Well, after stopping at 3 different stores we found zero packages of ground beef and hot dog buns but no hamburger buns. No bother though. Adrien went on over to his neighbours house. dove into his freezer, and came back with some ground moose from 2012 (as one does). Meanwhile, Vanessa had already whipped up some home made burger buns. A couple of hours later, with the babies fast asleep, Z and the adults tucked into the tastiest moose burgers I have ever had. Okay I don't think I've actually ever had moose burgers before (I have had a caribou burger though, in case anyone is keeping track), but it was so delicious I'm certain it would have been the best even if I had had a million before. Better than any hamburger I've had in a long, long time. Those two know what they are doing! And don't even get me started on the homemade Mississippi Mudpie!

The next day, Lola and I toured the hospital where Adrien and Vanessa work (Zac was SO excited to show us the ambulance!) and then headed off into the rainy afternoon to join the festival going on a short ferry ride away on the island.

It was rainy and buggy and a long rugged walk from the where the ferry dropped us off to the main tent but it was beautiful.

And just as it was starting to pour and get just a bit too cold, we ducked into a teepee and life became infinitely better.

In the teepee were some Cree tending to a large fire in the middle, with geese roasting and bear being prepped for cooking. The ground was lined with branches of pine which was actually so nice and soft to sit on. It was warm and inviting and all we did was sit and relax and take it all in and it was perfect.

The sky eventually cleared and by evening their was a beautiful pink glow over the entire neighbourhood. I couldn't stop taking pictures. There is such a rugged beauty to Chisasibi.

That night after checking the solar weather report, Adrien let me know that I might be able to catch a glimpse at the Northern lights around 1am. So, I set my alarm and hoped for the best as I drifted off to sleep. When I got up a few hours later I crept to the back door and peaked outside. It was still very foggy out but under a thick layer of cloud I could see a green glow. Standing there in the stillness of the night with the cool air surrounding me and the oddly coloured sky above I thought to myself I'd come back just to see this again. That's how I felt after hardly even seeing anything, imagine how I'd feel seeing the Lights for real??

Beyond all of those amazing experiences, it was also such a great trip because we got to spend time with the family. Seeing Lola and her cousins together is simply the best. And getting to spend time with my favourite nephews is also one of life's great pleasures.

  So far, this is the best picture of the trio we've gotten. They are all awake, all in the same frame, and all (somewhat) sitting on their own - in other words, this is what we consider a success. 

The next afternoon it was already time for Lola and I to make the journey back home. We got to the airport to find out that the plane that comes from a town even MORE North than Chisiasibi was going to be seriously delayed. So, Lola and I joined Adrien as he went about his errands in the "big" town located near the airport. On his agenda: grocery shopping, a stop at the liquor store, and filling up the gas tank. Turns out, that all happens at the same store. So much for the big town with big stores I had imagined when they talked about this!

Anyway, the flight representative then called my cell phone to inform us that the plane was on its way and so Adrien dropped Lola and I back off at the one-room airport. We were the only two people getting on the plane in Chisasibi! Having a whole airport to ourselves was just what we needed before becoming confined to a shared plane seat for the next few hours.

Nine hours after we left Adrien & Vanessa's house in Chisasibi, Lola and I were finally home. She was such a champ, smiling and giggling the entire time...with the exception of the last 10mins when she totally lost her shit and screamed until I finally laid her down on my lap (against landing procedures) and she immediately fell asleep. Hard. I was immensely proud of her for all of this.

The next day, I took off from work and Lola and I readjusted back to life as we know it. Though at the end of the day, there's just nothing like home, there is also something so magical about traveling and I absolutely loved sharing that with Lola. It was so wonderful to go on such an adventure just me and my girl. I know I'll be telling her about it for years and years to come, hopefully sparking that love of travel in her too, and paving the way for her own incredible journeys.

Back Soon!

Ahhhhhhh sorry sorry sorry sorry, I have been so negligent of this little blog of mine. I promise to be back with a few posts shortly. I have one all written up, just have to throw some pictures in, hopefully tomorrow but worst case scenario by the end of the weekend.

Bare with me, I've been a little bit swamped with un-blog and un-Lola related stuff but the light at the end of the tunnel is fast approaching and I will be back with a vengeance soon!

xo

Beach Life

A couple of weeks ago, Sean and I finally took a vacation. 

Between me being in my probationary period at work (where I wasn't able to take vacation days) and Sean working 6 days a week for the last 9 months, not to mention a growing baby to contend with, it felt amazing to finally take a little break. 

And break we did. 

We started with a visit to our lost love, New York. We spent 14 hours there, 12ish of which were spent in our hotel room (with some of our favourite New York friends very accomodatingly coming over to hang with us there) but we still managed to have the best time.

   We did very New York things like eat burgers from, allegedly, the best burger place in the city, and took a walk through Central Park (...after getting sick of sitting in traffic in a taxi). In the morning I took Lola down to Rockefeller Plaza so that we could have coffee (me), eat oatmeal (her), and watch the Today Show as we do every morning.

And then just as quickly as we arrived, we were off again. This time, headed down the shore to Long Beach Island, NJ.

My most favourite place ever.

We first started going to LBI back in...maybe 1992? Ages and ages ago, in other words. A few years back it dawned on me that Uncle John and Aunt Corinne were around our age in those early years. It blew my mind. I suddenly realized we aren't the children any more, we're the adults.

Luckily, our adulthood (i.e. finding a rental, planning the week, organizing meals, cleaning, etc. etc. etc.) was put off for yet another year as the ever-hospitable Connelly clan took us all in once again. I can't tell you how nice it is and how great they are as hosts, we are truly blessed.

The best part of it of course was that Lola got to spend time with her family. She's always been a bit of a mamma's girl but now that she's 9 months old, oh boy the separation anxiety is at its height. This makes her a little unsure about hanging out with others, which kills me because I so want her to be a social girl. Either way, she managed to chill out a few times and enjoy the company of a crowd of her fans. The family is great with her, everyone takes such joy in the little things that she does. And watching everyone try to help her crawl - hilarious and heartwarming. You've never seen so many grown people down on all fours. She never did manage to figure out the forward motion so essential to crawling but she did pick up a few other things during our vacation anyway. Mostly an affinity for Big Brother, which somehow went from being just "something on" during a rainy day to a full on obsession for some who shall remain anonymous (cough cough Sean cough). 

After nights drinking beers on the deck and late night runs to Meltdown (formerly referred to as Skipper Dipper to my husband's confusion), the house was often quiet in the mornings and Lola and I found ourselves mostly on our own for a short period of time. Not ever having been a morning person before Lola, I wasn't exactly sure what to do with this. And then I remembered one summer at the shore when Nicole, just a little thing at the time, had told me about seeing dolphins jumping out of the water during an early morning walk on the beach. For years I had thought about that, wishing I had enough will power to wake up early enough to go check this out for myself. But it never happened. The only reason I ever woke up early down the shore was to go eat breakfast at Uncle Wills Pancake House. And unless chocolate chip pancakes were part of the deal, an early wake-up was just not going to happen. 

But here I was, awake early! With a little monkey who naps by 9:30am and is unlikely to cooperate with a 30min + wait followed by a crowded restaurant, Uncle Wills was not in our sights. But a walk to the beach? That we could do. And do we did. 

(Lola's first selfie!)

No, we didn't end up seeing any dolphins but it was great nonetheless. Just me, my girl, and the ocean 

It was really such a great few days, overall. We celebrated the 4th of July by blasting Springsteen and playing a family game of Flip Cup, we rode bikes past Fantasy Island, we wedding planned and shopped, we swam in the big Jersey waves, drank summery beers, and laid out on the beach for as long as possible. I could go on and on. 

I mean really, is there anything better than a good ol' fashioned famjam at the Jersey shore?

#LBIfamjam2015 you were a slice! 

Thank you so much Connelly's!!

Why Didn't Anybody Tell Me?!

In the last year and a half, life has changed a great deal for Sean and I. From the second you see that little pink line on the pregnancy test, I knew this would be the case, I did. Its just, I thought I could intellectualize my way through these changes. I though I could prepare for them. We would read books and have discussions, google weirder things than we'd ever googled before, that kind of thing. This would lead to success, I told myself. I would do my due diligence and as a result I could, at the very least, anticipate what changes might lay ahead.

Despite all my efforts though, I find myself almost daily asking: why didn't anybody tell us this??

For example: My hair. All I have heard about babies and hair is that pregnancy makes your nail and your hair grow longer, faster, and thicker. Perfect, I thought and readied myself for my beautiful, well-earned mane. Yet as my belly grew and grew my hair seemed to get worse and worse. By the time Lola was out in the world, the top section of my hair had almost completely broken off, leaving me with a jagged, mushroom-cut/mullet combination in the front. Less than ideal.

But she was out, she was out and it was breastfeeding time - that also does fantastic things to your hair and nails I heard. Here is where the hair rehabbing would begin! But oh wait, nope, things just got worse! Only recently when I started noticing thick baby hairs growing all over my head did I realize what had been happening - my hair had been falling out at the root.

Upon complaining about this to anybody who would listen, a peculiar thing started to happen. Other mothers would nod their heads in sympathy and tell me all about how that had happened to them too. Once again I found myself asking, WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THIS??

And then I came across this video and quite suddenly I understood. People do tell you. They tell you everything - the good, the bad, the weird, the unusual - but we don't listen. Because thats the funny thing about parenthood, you can read and study and prepare and discuss as much as your brain can handle but it will never be enough. Because you'll never know what anybody is talking about until you're there, in the moment, experiencing it.

I mean, if somebody had told me that I'd not only cry like a baby every time I watch this video but that I'd cry even when I'm just thinking about this video, I would have never believed you. But alas, its happened.

I'm still adjusting to life as a cryer. Its quite different than what I'm used to, that's for sure. But while it can make things uncomfortable from time to time (i.e. I've had to hold back tears at work a few times when discussing cases and in difficult sessions), I can totally see its benefits. "All the love," as they say in the video, is what keeps me going day to day. Its what makes it possible for me, the most un-morning person ever, to wake up early 7 days a week with a smile on my face.  After a completely terrible, exhausting, awful day, its what makes me look forward with excitement to the next day. Those beyond-my-control, overwhelming, all-consuming emotions are what make me feel, for the first time in my life, relaxed and positive, like no challenge is too big to take on.

I have to say, never in my life would I have believed you if you told me this time last year that I'd be feeling this way. Which I guess is why I should stop asking why didn't anybody tell me because they did tell me. I just wasn't ready to hear it then. I wasn't a mom yet.

~ 9 Months ~

Nine months in and our little Lola is changing from a baby to a child right in front of our eyes…

Sam reminded me of this pic the other day and asked if Lola still uses her swing. I sent her this back in response:

Whereas last month was all about happiness, this month seemed to be more about frustration. Lola suddenly became much more able-bodied – she can push herself backwards, reach and wiggle her way over to toys just beyond her grasp, hold herself in her sitting position even when playing hard with a large and heavy toy, and can even hold her bottle one-handed! 

But with all of these new skills comes the realization that so much more is possible, yet her muscles and body don’t seem quite ready to oblige. Never is this more apparent than when Lola tries to crawl. She’ll throw herself down so that she’s on her back, flip over with great force, pull her knees up, stick her arms out, and stares determinedly ahead. And then… well, that’s as far as we’ve gotten. 

Usually what comes next is Lola down on her belly again, laughing, kicking her legs, and waving her arms as if she’s saying “this is what I meant to do all along!” It looks like she’s happily swimming in place. 

To me, this is great development. We are so close to forward motion. But to Lola, after a few times of this, she gets pretty annoyed. And who could blame her? Watching her do this you can almost see her thought process – come on body, work with me here, why aren’t you moving like I’m willing you too???

Its not just the lack of brain-body coordination that’s frustrating her though, its also the tricky situations she finds herself in as a result of crawling practice. Here she is about mid-way through her afternoon nap one weekend:

And after a good 10minutes of trying to move forward but only ending up moving backward and backward and backward:

I know that she’s SO close to crawling and that it’ll likely come any day now but despite that, I still worry. Lola is 9 months now and she’s still not doing a few things that “they say” she should be doing: She doesn’t pull herself to standing, she doesn’t show all that much interest in trying out any vertical movements of any kind, she doesn’t babble using consonant-vowel sounds… 

But on the other hand, she does do a heck of a lot and has made new developments this month. She can now sit and play on her own for quite awhile. I mean, she checks in with us and sometimes requires our singing and dancing to be entertained but other times she’s totally captivated by her toys and trying out new movements and signing and making noises that she doesn’t need us at all. Its really cool to see her interact with her toys and her environment like this, she really explores and checks things out. Lola can’t get enough of this one elephant toy that she has. If you squeeze its feet, it squeaks loudly and she thinks this is the most hilarious thing of all time. She hasn’t quite understood that she can make the noise just by squeezing, instead she jams it into her mouth to get it to make the sound. Then she giggles and giggles and does it again and again. Cause and effect learning at its finest! 

This month Lola also started working on waving and clapping. She does neither consistently. Sometimes she might slightly wiggle her fingers in response to us adults saying “wave Lola” and waving our hands like lunatics for far too long a period of time. Most time she just stares at us with a look that says, rightfully, “You’re all lunatics.” And when we ask Lola to clap we usually say, “clap Lola, yayyyyy!!!” to which Lola will make a noise that sounds like “yaayyyyyy” but will not clap. I’m working on her saying mama and dada too but all that happens is I keep saying , “Lola say mama” and Lola keeps giggling in response as if I’m telling her the best joke she’s ever heard. Which I guess is a pretty sweet second best. 

Anyway, somewhere in my brain I do know that everything is just fine and that she’ll  meet her milestones in due time. And it helps that her doctor isn’t worried one tiny little bit either. We just went for her 9 month check up on her 9 month birthday and all is good. Lola is still a dainty girl, weighing in at just over 15lbs, but she is thriving. And what she lacks in weight she makes up for in personality and smiles. 

Despite her small size, I can see her maturing daily. She now largely enjoys her bottles on her own. She sips on them as she plays, abandoning it for a couple of minutes to explore something that catches her attention and returning to it when she’s done with the distraction. Also, we’ve taken her to a few restaurants, including two DINNERS, and she’s been a star, eating bread and babbling as if she’s keeping up with the conversation. Things like that. 

I’m so excited to see Lola become so grown up but its been a bit sad for me too… She’s definitely not my little baby anymore. Just before putting her down for the night I used to hold Lola against my chest and rock her for a few minutes. It was the sweetest, I’d listen to her breathing slow as she sucked her thumb, cheek against my chest with her little feet tucked in and up so that she was just a tiny little ball of deliciousness. But now, she is just too big and active for that. I try anyway, I’m not ready for it to be over just yet, but it’s a rare occurrence now. Usually she is pushing herself up, looking around for Charlie or daddy, kicking her legs to try out new movements. And whereas I used to put her down sleepy and she’d just drift off, now I put her down and she practically bounces herself out with the velocity of her kicks and arm waving! We even had to put a few special stuffed animals in the crib with her so that she has some company as she transitions into sleepy time. She takes a few minutes to herself, kicks and moves about, rolls onto her belly then turns herself around to face the other end of her crib, tries out her side for a bit, hugs a toy, pushes it away, grabs another one, and on and on and on. She’s a busy little lady.

So its been a month of transitions. My Lola is becoming more independent and I’m learning to adjust to not being the center of her universe. Its nice really, the less central I am to her, the more she seems to enjoy BOTH Sean and I as well as others around her (so much less crying when others hold her! As in, she actually sometimes LETS other people hold her!), but it’s a change. And change is hard. 

One change I am looking forward to though is a change of scenery. Tomorrow afternoon Sean and I are taking Lola for her first ever trip to two very special places: New York and Long Beach Island. As it is with us it’s going to be a whirlwind complete with planes, trains, and automobiles but I already know it will be so worth the effort.  

Wish us luck!