Posts in category "Photos"

parent time

When Karen’s at yoga, Aaron and I take turns cook­ing din­ner and play­ing with Ryan and Ruby (read: keep­ing them occu­pied and out of trou­ble). Then we gin­ger­ly con­vince them to eat what they can (good days involve uten­sils), make sure they’re bathed, and put into bed with a sto­ry if they’ve been good. Everything is man­age­able as one but eas­i­er with two, espe­cial­ly when the sim­ple act of get­ting rice into a child’s mouth can turn into an ordeal.

This is when I get to expe­ri­ence the joys of hav­ing chil­dren in man­age­able dos­es. That means not hav­ing to deal with dia­per changes, and read­ing the same 30-word book only four times instead of 400.

Ryan and Ruby

The new lap­tops were presents from Nana and Papa at Christmas. Now they can send/receive e‑mails, and blog about the awe­some poop they just took.

Ryan used to be par­tic­u­lar­ly excit­ed to see his Uncle Jeff, leav­ing Aaron and Karen to won­der what got into him when I was around. Now that he’s a bit old­er, his face does­n’t car­ry the same glow when I arrive any­more, and he’s hap­pi­er to see the mar­bles I brought. But Ruby is begin­ning that phase of enam­our, and con­stant­ly clam­ber­ing into my lap to involve her­self in what I’m doing. Recently she start­ed ask­ing me to car­ry her (which I’m told means mem­ber­ship in an exclu­sive club con­sist­ing of her par­ents and me), even though she’s just learned to man­age stairs by her­self.

They seem to grow by inch­es every week, and they’ll soon be old enough to take care of them­selves. I’ve learned to appre­ci­ate the lit­tle chances I have to be tru­ly part of a fam­i­ly like this, espe­cial­ly after decid­ing last year against ever hav­ing kids of my own. And I don’t feel the need for chil­dren any­more cause this will always be enough.

a heavier dose

I’ve been try­ing to stay vocal about my needs, lest I fall back into old life traps and defence mech­a­nisms. It means I’m still apply­ing lessons learned from last year, still try­ing to be open even if it means being vul­ner­a­ble.

As far as I can tell, this has been work­ing in my favour. Otherwise, Seth would­n’t be com­ing over on Saturday to teach me how to play the acoustic ver­sion of Sean Rowe’s Jonathan, one of those songs I’ve always want­ed to learn before I die.

As a side-effect, it’s been a strug­gle to bal­ance my rela­tion­ship needs with over­stim­u­la­tion. The oth­er night we smoked an apéri­tif in the car before spend­ing three hours gorg­ing our­selves on all-you-can-eat sushi, learn­ing that the small but sig­nif­i­cant priv­i­leges of our class come in plates of bite-sized fat­ty pro­tein made to order. Then we watched the entire first sea­son of Tim and Eric, Awesome Show! Great Job, and played Magic until 4:30 in the morn­ing.

It left me burnt out and I must have lost two days, yet it still feels like I don’t have enough nights like that, shar­ing real moments with peo­ple who don’t per­pet­u­al­ly have some­where else to be or some­one else to see. I need more of those times in my every­day life, not just in the days marked on my cal­en­dar.

merry x-mas

Julia asked me how long I’d been spend­ing Christmas at their house. We fig­ured out this was the sev­enth year, cause I have pic­tures of Ginger from 2005, before she died. I can’t say I remem­ber each Christmas dis­tinct­ly, aside from a few extra faces and occa­sion­al make­outs that cause some to stand out more than oth­ers. It’s strange to think that I’ve known Braiden for more than half his life. I per­pet­u­al­ly think of him as being sev­en.

The Rogers'

The kids are get­ting old­er, no longer up at 5am and anx­ious­ly wait­ing by the presents until they’re allowed to wake up the par­ents. The idea of Santa has long been dis­pelled. Braiden’s giv­en up being a cen­tre for goalie, lost his post-sea­son scruff cut, and at 13 is only an inch short­er than me. Nicole’s done most of her grow­ing and will be legal in four months, but at the age where she’s still some­one’s daugh­ter instead of her own woman. Julia’s sport­ing a new voice and pierc­ing, but has kept all the sass that comes with being the mid­dle child.

Continue read­ing “mer­ry x‑mas”…

finishing the game

It’s been an aim­less win­ter. Some days full of mean­ing, oth­ers pass­ing with­out so much as a moment worth remem­ber­ing. I’ve learned to cher­ish every storm cause each one could be your last. Who knows when you’ll get to walk on trails cut through tan­gled branch­es with the snow as wet and thick and heavy as this again?

long driveway with snow

The hol­i­days snuck up on me. I’ve been try­ing to fig­ure out where all the time has gone and how best to use what’s left. The only dec­o­rat­ing I’ve done for the sea­son is a real pine wreath (gen­er­ous­ly giv­en to me by Steph) hung on the office door. A small act that does­n’t seem like much com­pared to the glo­ri­ous ceil­ing-scrap­ing trees in the hous­es of my friends and neigh­bours, but cer­tain­ly more than I’ve done in the recent years. It’s an easy con­ces­sion to make against my grow­ing dis­taste for the com­mer­cial­ized Christmas cul­ture when my room is filled with the scent of sap, scat­tered pine nee­dles, and oth­er reminders of life.

car-in-snow

The ever-faith­ful steed.

My exis­tence is defined by what I have left to do, and the list grows ever short­er. I live week-by-week, through cycles of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and play, try­ing to meet each need in turn. It’s always a del­i­cate bal­ance to be man­ag­ing when so much in life is out of your con­trol.

As for the short term, I’m off to Shirley’s for Christmas and my annu­al dose of fam­i­ly. It’ll be a com­plete break from my reg­u­lar life of sin­gle-serv­ing meals and nev­er being around more than one per­son at a time. I imag­ine we’ll spend most of the days eat­ing fin­ger foods and watch­ing real­i­ty TV among the ram­bunc­tious flus­ter of her kids. I always look for­ward to see­ing how they’re car­ry­ing their grown-up voic­es and how their styles have changed.

hot chocolate

This is the time of year I’m most scared of being left with­out plans1, but recent­ly I haven’t had enough time alone. It’s left me feel­ing numb and tired and that’s exact­ly what I need right now.

Friends still make the best dis­trac­tions. It’s easy to hide from any­thing when you’re shar­ing a blan­ket and some ear­ly episodes of Trailer Park Boys.

  1. Also why I usu­al­ly make a trip to Toronto. [↩]

old heroes and new lives

My entries used to be filled with so many details, moments, thoughts, and emo­tions. I used to believe every­thing I wrote was impor­tant. Not that I was ever a par­tic­u­lar­ly good writer, only a per­son try­ing to be hon­est with him­self, and that was the way for me to sort out the things in my head.

Now that need isn’t there any­more. Instead, I write to keep track of where I am, know­ing that in time I’ll be won­der­ing how far I’ve gone, and let my pic­tures fill in the blanks.

Banc Sushi and cleavage

On my birth­day, Lisa treat­ed me to all-you-can-eat sushi at my favourite restau­rant, and cleav­age.

The new Leonard Cohen biog­ra­phy is out and Genevieve tells me it’s amaz­ing, or at least a great deal more infor­ma­tive than the course we took last year at Ottawa U about the birth of the roman­tic trou­ba­dour. I used to be com­plete­ly obsessed with this man, but now I can’t remem­ber the last time I put on one of his albums for a straight lis­ten through. I knew he was com­ing to Ottawa this Friday before tick­ets went on sale, but nev­er both­ered try­ing to get my hands on one, even though it used to be a goal of mine to see him per­form live before the booze and sex took him like a true rock­star. He rep­re­sents a part of my past I hard­ly relate to now, and it’s left me feel­ing like I need a new hero (who has some very big shoes to fill).

birthday boy

Little boy’s birth­day par­ties involve a lit­tle less sexy and a lot more chaos.

I have so many friends with their paths set out for them over next 20-odd years cause of jobs and kids, yet just as many who’ve arrived at adult­hood and are now won­der­ing what’s next. After find­ing a career, buy­ing a house, and get­ting mar­ried, they’re learn­ing that these were goals they nev­er want­ed for them­selves, only things peo­ple have always been telling them they should have. Now they’re won­der­ing where to go from here, and how to find a true sense of ful­fil­ment.

I went through the same cri­sis years ago, but feel no less uncer­tain about the future at this point. It’s only nat­ur­al to go through con­stant cycles of strug­gle and res­o­lu­tion if we’re deter­mined to grow and improve, not to men­tion the curves life tends to throw at us. I’m start­ing to view it with a sense of free­dom instead of doubt.