This year has been great so far! A whole month whizzed by just like that...and here's the recap:our 2008 ended on a wonderful high note with a night of dancing and meeting new people (as well as hugging many familiar faces) at the Michael Franti & Spearhead show at the Vogue theatre. awesome and inspiring as always :)
We celebrated the turn of the year with a few of our favorite folks in our co-op. Sasha and the other little girls had a tea party and all the kids tired themselves out running and playing. once it became more work than fun for us adults we all tidied up and headed home. Just about everyone did the same thing...put children to bed...pop in movie...flake out and cheers the new year groggily around 1am on the way to bed. wild party animals we are, hehe
The new year has already brought big change for Sasha as she has been transitioning into the 3-5 year old side of her day care...and on monday the 2nd she is officially in the over 3's!! Still 3 months from her 3rd bday she has been going through a bit of emotional back-and-forth as she toys with the notion of being a big girl, while she still kinda wants to be a baby. So sweet, and yet another stage requiring plenty 'o patience. ;)
Next post will have more stories on her day care transition. Other Sasha news from the past month begins with her eye follow up which went really well. We have a new prescription for her lenses ("to give them a tune up") and a this point we are to continue the patching and monitoring to see if her vision strengthens/weakens. At this point Dr K is still happy with her progress. He was amazed at how well she knew her letters and how articulate she is, which is also a helpful tool to hear from Sasha herself what she can & can't see. Her next eye check up will be on her bday...good thing this is the doctor she actually likes to go visit! lol
Our family doctor is not so lucky...Sasha hates going there. Probably has something to do with the fact that her first 4 visits to Dr. A all included needles. aaaaagh. I'd be worried going there too. haha. Well, this month, after a period of time that we noticed her pee smelled quite funky (oh, the joys of parenting and all the opportunites to talk about the pees and poos of our children...ahahahaha!) we had a visit with Dr. A that required no pokes. However I did have to catch some of her pee for a sample to send to the lab (oh ya, I know you're jealous), and she did end up having another urine infection. A week of antibiotics (and a follow up pee sample the week after to send to the lab) seemed to do the trick and all seems back to normal for now. just go with the flow so long as she seems happy and healthy...which she is!
Time with friends and family this month included a potluck dinner with Kirsten & Carl (Sasha talks about Kirsten all the time, especially when she wears the sweater that she knitted) which was a quality time night much needed, and I had a party night at Ali's with some of my fave folks from the pool (we played Cranium and I had an insane time warp experience being in the very same apartment that Mark & I lived in 10 years ago!! small world).
A spontaneous gathering at Dad & Liz's gave me a chance to see Karli, Elise and Brett, who I had missed during their brief visit before christmas. Sasha was thrilled by the evening opportunity to see all 3 of her Whittam grandparents, her aunty and her cousins. This is one tot who adores her clan! I love the contrast of these pics: the totally stiff posed version...and the "ok, make a funny face" version. gotta love 'm :)
After a few weeks of snow and the chaos that came with it (not something our fair city was prepared for at all!!) there was a weekend of brilliant sunshine, so we spent the bulk of it playing in all of our neighbourhood parks, including the new park that was installed at the end of our co-op!
A couple of my fave random shots: this pic of Sasha with a ponytail (we'll be giving her hair a trim soon as her bangs are now hanging in her face); an action shot of her testing out her Dora sit & spin (she owes big hugs to her cousins in Whistler for this one!); and Sasha achieving new heights on the rope climber...and the awesome pic of brother and sister on their perch mid-way!
I began the year declaring my complete gratitude for a life near perfect...and then murphy reminds me of the fragility of all things 'perfect'...and I received word that my stable employment, aka known as the job-share, would be over before the end of the month...and now it is complete.So i'm drifting along as an auxilary again. Currently filling hours left vacant after one of our full time staff retired after serving the Britannia community for about 30 years. (a fantastic woman who I have thoroughly enjoyed working with over the past 4-5 years! cheers!)
I've been thinking a lot now about what to do next. The instability of the feast or famine life of auxilary work for the city makes me crazy now that our whole family has to juggle schedules to accomodate this. No longer an option.
Through all of my volunteer hats I have acquired skills I really want to put to use, so I'm searching for something in which I can grow, challenge myself, benefit an organization I care about, and meet new potential within. But part-time so i can actually finish my documentary too.
Does such a thing exist?? I have ideas and it's the Year of the Ox...my year if ever their was one. (she says stubbornly trying to prepare for whatever path the stars have in store) So I'm having a little faith in murphy, appreciating that I have enough hours to coast on for a while to take time to search for new possibilities, and trying to have confidence in myself that I can achieve my overachieving goals.
breathe. remember to breathe. and practise the guitar...that helps too. Especially now that I have an expanding group of songs to practise. Thanks to a couple of more lessons with my friends, and now having the music to my other song, I am now hooked and loving playing music every day!
I am happy I acquired a new dayplanner for the year that was put out by Mothers Acting Up. I really want to keep my work on Educate Me!? and CPEN organized...not to mention time with family and friends! So the dayplanner does a great stand in for 'my brain'. But this MAU calendar is also fully loaded with inspiration from tales of dynamic folks (mainly marvelous mothers acting up, of course) making a difference, plus weekly actions to follow through on. This month included: watching the "I have a dream" speech by MLK and learning more about his role in the civil rights movement and beyond-check; tell everyone you know about Cesar Chavez and the work he did as an organizer-working on it...visit www.chavezfoundation.org to see what work carries on as a part of his legacy; reading "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson and make a family commitment to actions we can take to reduce our footprint on mama earth-a partial check (that book has long been on my 'to read' list...one day).
Wrapping up last year, we had decided that we were going to take another step in our evolution as 'locavores' by sourcing even more local businesses and farms to support with our money...and word of mouth (you know I can put my babbling to good use too, eh). We are committed to taking our local spending to the extreme this year as we have become firm believers in the importance of supporting strong local economies with sustainable local food sources for our family to feast upon. Seems extra important in these times of global economic uncertainty...
How timely that I should spontaneously come across a poster for a new community garden to be developed at the Great Northern Way Campus across the street from us! So I finished the month off with a visit with our friend Margot to an info session about the planned project...and I am so excited about the possibility of being a part of this community garden! We'll find out by end of Feb if we will get a plot (many more interested than there are plots available) but even if we don't, I'll keep visiting to watch it bloom! Here is the vacant parking lot where the raised-beds garden will begin. All the industrial land to the right will soon be a part of the multi-university complex, and Evergreen has many other plans in store for this space. I have a feeling this space is gonna become a regular feature in my updates ;)
Despite a wee bit of anxiety around what the heck I'm gonna do for a paycheque, I'm still full of hope for this new year. No other complaints out of me. (now that the 3 week cronic headpain has passed) These are exciting times, if not a wee bit tense, with the new leadership of President Obama to the south. (I love the stimulation of the trade debate! we should all be looking to strengthen our local economies! within the global context. stop complaining Harper and inspire Canadians to "buy Canadian" instead!!)
And at my loved Britannia community centre, we will have a new leader starting next week, with Cynthia Low taking the helm as our new ED, who I believe will have a positive impact on the future of our complex complex. I look forward to seeing how she uses her energy at Brit!
and...Perhaps we'll have more positive leadership in BC after the elections in May too?
On that note, here's a clip of Sasha singing her 'slippery fish' song. hehe
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