moving mountains

i feel like i've moved mountains today! truly! getting through the red tape of canadian government agencies is like moving mountains. let me indulge you for a moment....
did you know that officially it takes three months for a child to get his or her birth certificate? yes. that is what they tell you, when you call the agency. and the application form consists of four pages, where the questions are so confusing (things like - the applicant is not the child, but one of the parents!), that i have managed to make mistakes on both copies of the official forms i had ordered. however, when i called the office to ask where i could pick up another application form, they conveniently forgot to tell me that there is a web site, where you can fill out a simplified version of the form, pay and order the stupid certificate all from the convenience of your own computer chair! that was about five days ago.

i do have to stroke my own ego, here, a little. i was wise. i did not give up that easy. i figured... most government forms are downloadable. let's do a search. and sure enough, i found the site, filled out the form, ordered the certificate and exactly four days later i got a notice in the mail box to come and pick it up. four days! what the #@$%??? how is that possible? how can it take three months on paper and be done in four days on the web? i just don't get it. and it seems like the web thing is the best kept secret, because none of the other mothers i have talked to knew anything about this site and they all have ordered their kid's birth certificates. infuriating!

but...i did not get off that easy. when i went to pick it up, it turned out i had to show them the original bith registry form. we never got that. at least, not that i can remeber. (i hope steve is not going to tell me otherwise!) this meant having to go to the city hall to get an official copy. then back to etobicoke for the birth certificate. finally, after standing in line-ups three times & spending 90$, a whole three hours later i had the little piece of paper in my hand. score! i headed straight for the dufferin mall, where the closest government office issuing SIN numbers is located and stood in another line up and got that done, too. so that's my story. it was exhausting. but now my child has all the paperwork necessary to be a functioning, official citizen of this country. or i've just been through all the red tape i can handle for a while.

blah, blah, blah

can't really bring myself to write anyhting. maybe kaspar can start doing his own blogs, soon... i went to work today for about four hours. it really got me down. oh well. maybe tomorrow...

the two day long entry

it seems like we have not had much of a winter for over a month now, so, you can understand my surprise, when steve calls me last night to tell me that they have been caught in a snowstorm that is supposed to deliver from 30 - 40 cm of the white stuff over the course of the night. that's only 5 hours north of toronto! strange... we were supposed to get snow, as well, but we mostly got rain and the bits of flurries that did appear, disappeared as soon as they hit the ground. the weather has been very strange this winter!

today is sunday, and yet i have not done a single thing to make me feel like it's sunday. the weather has been windy enough and kaspar has had a sniffle, big enough to make me not want to go outside. so, i'm hanging out at home with my kiddo and pampering my mother, who's sort of an invalid today. she slipped and fell on the stairs last night and pretty badly bruised her back. thank god she managed to catch herself! i feel for her... i remember a certain boy named george, who pulled a chair out from behind me, and i fell and hit my tail bone and lower back on the edge of the chair. i was in pain for a long time. i've hated the name george, ever since!

well, this didn't get finished last night... kaspar woke up and we had three hours of sincere crying. it was not just cranky screaming, but absolutely sincere crying with a flood of tears followed by two hours of hiccups (or, you know the sort of gasping for air, like one does, after very hard and long crying) i'm not sure, but i wonder if his gums are hurting. he does have a couple of very hard, about to pop, bumps on his lower gum line. who knows. that's the hardest part - not being able to understand why the crying occurs. anyway... now, we're up. happy. well. he's happy. i'm relatively happy. i'm more sleepy then happy. but, i just made myself three cappuccinos, so i will be better in a few minutes. yes, i do find it extremely hard to wake up at 6am. it does not happen every day, but probably about half the days of his life, kaspar wakes up just after 6am. and, if steve is not home to take him for that first hour (or, if he just got in at 4am) then i'm it!

i'm listening to cbc radio. it's kind of my lifeline. very often i have 'cbc one' on in the background, while i'm working or cooking or something. kaspar is definitely used to it. i realized this morning, that he perked up and listened to it intently as the metro morning jingle came on. funny! he's very tuned into different sounds. not talking, but musical sounds. i like the constant flow of useful or sometimes useless information... but in either case there is something to think about and listen to, while my hands are at work. i'm very proud to say that as of this week not only one, but two of my friends work for cbc. how awesome is that!?!



here is kaspar - the star. this is my saving grace in the mornings. when he gets his hands on the microphone, he's busy for a good twenty minutes, which gives me a chance to finish my blog and in turn gives you all a couple of good pics. hope you all have a great day and great week ahead!

a different point of view

"everyone looks at the world from a different point of view"... believe it or not, but it's a line i pulled from a commercial. i'm not sure, but i think it's for a bank or some corporation. is it the success of the add that makes me remember the line or the failure of it that makes me not know what it advertises.... i don't know, and... who cares. however, it does ring true, does it not? we're unique. our points of view. our experiences. lives. feelings. the whole lot.

steve left for another tour with his band this morning. every time he leave on tour, i hate it. i resent having to let him go. however, i love his band and i do love the fact that they are having success in what they do. and, if i have to let him go, then there is no one else i'd better see him go with then mark and casey. actually, until recently i have not had much of a reaction to his touring, but having kaspar has made a huge difference. until this year, steve's touring simply meant me having more 'me time'. now it just means steve missing time with kaspar. it all depends on your point of view, does it not?

i spent most of the day today catching up with friends, answering messages, e-mails and talking to my sister on skype. skype is one of those internet based phone services, where calling long distance is not just cheap, but free. i love it! it gives me a chance to talk to my family overseas for free for as long as i like! oh. technology is awesome! at least from this point of view.

kaspar has more teeth on the way. i cannot wait until these next few come in. he's been cranky, whiny and picky all day, but now he's sleeping soundly. he's changed a lot over the last few days. i feel like he's become more grown up, almost overnight. i was hanging out with him this afternoon, trying to remember all the things he used to do and making notes of stuff he does now, and i just had to admit it - i'm already forgetting. changes come and go so fast. it's so easy to forget. he's growing so fast... that's just my point of view!

feelin' better ... all the time

oh. what a bliss. i'm feeling better today. the overdose of ginger tea and lemon and vitamins and echinacia must have done some good. kaspar and i both shoved up at the doctor's office today, but i was forced to fake it. i had to pretend i was feeling worse then i really was... i'm not sure if she bought it. anyhow... the stats are as follows - at six months and two weeks kaspar weighs 18 1/4 pounds or 8.278 kg, is 76 cm or 30.18 inches, which puts him at 98 percentile in height and 57 percentile in weight for his age group. his speech pattern, responsiveness and physical development is closer to an average 8 month old. that's just statistics. it does not mean much, really... noe the less, it's fascinating, huh?

steve just got back from the states. i can now bragg that we are the owners of a new, old car. we have managed to get our hands on a ten year old volvo wagon. i have been on pins and needles all day, waiting to see how all the transfers go through customs, but all is well. steve is back with the new car! now, we just hve to sell the old one. yikes... i'm glad i'm not in charge of that!

well. i think that's enough news for one day. isn't it? i'm about to go for a spin in our new wagon before steve changes his mind about it.

i'm sick

i've been in denial for a couple of days now... but i think i have to admit it - i'm sick. whatever kaspar had must have been passed on to me and i just developed it into a full blown cold. it sucks. i feel sorry for myself. my head feels heavy. my voice is groggy. i'm sneezing every few minutes. glad that kaspar got through this first. at least i don't have to deal with sick me and sick baby at the same time.

in fact, kaspar has been feeling great. today he had the giggles most of the day. it was quite funny. i'd just show him my finger and he'd laugh. i'd give him the spoon -another bout of laughter. i try feeling him - more giggles. that was the hardest part. half of his sweet potato mush ended up on my pants and my face. later we spent a good half hour playing with his hat. just putting it on and pulling it off produced a whole load of laughter. his laugh is so funny, too. when he laughs, he sounds like a little donkey. he makes no sound breathing out, but when he breathes in, it's kind of like he makes this little eeh-ahh sound. i cannot explain it. but it's very funny. and the more we laugh at him the more he laughs...

the other really cool thing - he's starting to figure out how to use his teeth. in the beginning he was just biting left and right, hurting our hands, his own hands and fingers, and hurting his upper gums(which still have no teeth) while trying to bite into hard things, but he's finally figured out that the two little sharp white things on the bottom of his gums are of some use. i'm giving some credit to these little cookies called mumm-mumms, which are hard for biting, but melt in the mouth very fast. today he spent a nice long time (while i was watching him very closely, ready to shove a finger down his throat, if necessary) gnawing on a cucumber. and he did it very well. he basically scraped little bits of it, with his bottom teeth into his mouth and swallowed. here is a picture to prove it. and he was very good about it, not taking big bites, not gagging on bits... i was very impressed. one of these days he might actually graduate to hard food. after making mush twice a day for the last six weeks, it's hard to belive that a day might come, when mush will not be a part of my daily routine.

tomorrow we are due at our doctor's for a regular check-up. i'll post the new data in the next blog. remind me, if i forget :-) i'm blindly going into this one. i have not checked for weeks what he weighs or how much he's grown. and now i'm so curious to find out. it's funny... how often we used to check his weight in the beginning. for the first couple of months i must have measured his length almost daily. and now... well, i guess now i'm measuring progress in bites of cucumber!

it's almost midnight. i have to get into the habit of writing earlier in the day. i run out of steam and forget all those marvelous little tid bits of stuff i was going to write about... tired. goodnight.

an odd sort of a day

first of all, i owe my sister an apology. it wasn't her! she didn't call me lazy. but, i know she would have, if she had though of it first. i bet she's biting her nails and wishing it was her. it turns out that some of my friends are pretty gutsy... some of my friend's parents even more so! got to love it :-) it's shocking to find out how many people read this little notepad of mine on a regular basis. all my love to all you odd people out there. sorry for the missed days and empty, uninspiring chatter. i'm not going to promise anything more. this is all you get. ha!

today was odd. early in the day we watched a suicidal man skating on the high park pond. yes! i say suicidal, because it has been cold for maybe a day and a night... ok, maybe two nights. the lake is hardly frozen. the edges of the lake were all water. i’m not exaggerating, for a good half a meter there was open water. and there, in the middle of the lake, just like he had fallen out of the white sky, there was a man on skates. it was beautiful. he was making gorgeous white carved lines onto the black shiny ice. the light behind him. the ice all dark. almost as though the lake was about to swallow him. he was floating. fast. back and forth. in circles. tracing the wisps of clouds in the sky. i hope he made it off the ice, as well. i stood there watching him for 15, maybe 20 minutes and then kaspar woke up and i had to start walking home. do you ever wonder if the things you see are just a mirage? it was kind of like that. it seemed so very surreal.

the crisp morning turned into a gorgeous, sunny day with temperatures reaching +7 in the sun. i spent some time sitting on the porch, soaking in the sun, daydreaming. kaspar slept for a long time. i managed to carry the stroller into the house without him waking up and he stayed asleep for an extra hour after our two hour long walk. what a bliss! tomorrow the weather man predicts +8 and sunny. it might be even nicer then today. i love this lack of winter. i wish every january was like this! i only feel bad for people who own businesses up north. they must be suffering! so sorry...

since kaspar's arrival, me and steve (and my mom, too, i have to give her some of the credit!) keep coming up with all sorts of new inventions for better baby products. there have been many great ideas and many already forgotten. if we had the wisdom to patent them all, we might actually be rich one day. tonight i invented the ideal baby/parent friendly telephone/toy. it's based on the fact that most babies love to play with items that parents use - like the telephone. but the phone is not very baby friendly. easy fix - stick a rubber nipple on the antenna and watch your kid be amused for hours!

i just got back from our local 'latvian pub night'. yes. we live in a neighborhood that has a large enough latvian population to have pub nights. it was my fist time and i must say, i think i might go again. i have a strange relationship with the latvian community. it's just like a relationship between most individuals and their families. hate it… love it… love it… like it… hate it… you love it and yet you want to get away from it.... but you go back and love it all over again. it was great to see some old friends. meet new people. see new faces. i had a great time! i counted 29 people tonight. some say there have been 35, 39, 42 people some nights. who knows which number is correct. none the less, i'm impressed. wow. i got to watch what i say on the streets around my place :-) never know who might understand...

someone just called me lazy... and i have a feeling it was my little sister. who else would have the guts to call me lazy? yeah, well... i might be getting a little sparse with my blogging, but i just won't take this abuse! i have important things to do when kaspar's asleep - like catching up on reading trashy novels, calling friends, watching bad movies, surfing the two channels on our twenty year old, 16" tv . besides, i need some down time, some pampering due to the great trauma i've suffered after this monday's elections. i had high hopes for the marihuana party, the green party would have been another good choice, but the conservatives won. oh, darn! the prime minister with plastic hair. c'est la vie!

i'd like to brag a little... but first let me knock on some wood, throw a pinch of salt over my left shoulder, pinch my right earlobe, hold a thumb or cross my fingers, and say a prayer, just to be on the safe side :-) kaspar has finally began to sleep. he's taking two naps a day (two to three hours) and going to bed at night around 8pm or 8:30. he's still not sleeping through the night, but he sleeps three, four hour stretches during he night. if we're very lucky, he'll go for 5 hours. and i wake up at 6am feeling much happier. and i spend the evening hours doing all those little things, i never had the chance to get to. it's great, really! i feel so blessed! not having to put him back to bed every hour makes all the difference in the world!

yesterday, i had to go into work for a few hours. there are a few things i have to help them out with now and then. it was a little odd. being in the office again. in some ways it almost felt like i had never been gone. except that i had kaspar sitting in my lap :-) it made me realize, that i'm really not ready to go back to the office. i wish i did not have to. but, but, but... glad i still have six months. except that the six months pass so fast!

i'm drawing a blank. staring at the screen and wondering what else i was planning to write about. ha. it's not a creative sort of a night for me. i must have spent all my creative juices over the course of the day. i've been working in the studio. this week has been productive and busy. chiao for now. i'm feeling tired! is today thursday or friday? loosing track of time...:-)

a post illness hangover

kaspar's got a post sickness hangover. he wakes up in the morning, has an hour of groggy playtime and falls right back asleep. kind of like someone with a really bad hangover. that's the only way i can describe it. he's sleeping so much, that sometimes i just have to go in the room to check if he's still breathing. he also sleeps often. however, i am totally paranoid that he will begin to confuse the day with the night. they warn you of these things in baby sleep books and baby help books. yeah! and i'm beginning to believe it... and i'm beginning to wonder. i hope it does not happen to us. on the other hand, i'm absolutely thrilled to have him sleep. even if it is during the day. ha, ha, ha. it's just so funny how with a baby it's never what you expect it to be. roller coaster. some of my friends, who have had two or more kids swear that this only happens with the first. is this true? apparently you only have this much time to worry about your first. well, i don't intend to try this theory anytime soon. and i'm enjoying every bit of this hectic roller coaster, at least today i am :-)

days like today only come every so often. steve was home all morning. we sent him out for kaspar's daily walk and they returned two hours later. i was able to work on some new pieces and some old pending orders. made an awesome ring for a dear old family friend! tried out some of my new tools. the new dye cut press cuts perfect circles 10mm in diameter with one blow of a mallet. besides the satisfaction of not having to saw them out, it's so therapeutic being able to hit the thing with the large rubber mallet. i love it. exploring my new tools is so much fun. i feel like a kid the day after christmas. tonight my camera has run out of juice, but i promise to show you my new tools one of these days. and maybe some of my new work, too. maybe...

tonight i plan to pamper myself (as a payoff for all the work that i did) and get myself a movie. i have no idea what, but i'm hoping that i'll be inspired once i get there. i still want to see the 'motorcycle diaries'. it's supposed to be a good film. well. now, i must go and put that kid to sleep so that my elaborate plan of movies and chips (or popcorn) can be fulfilled. last night i fell asleep a good half hour before he did (or so the story goes, when my mom tells it. i have no recollection of falling asleep). he, he, he...

i hate to be wrong, usually

yeah. usually it's the other way around, but this time - i hate to say i was right. kaspar's so called teething fever did turn into a cold. we have had a few days of feverish coughing, sneezing and general unhappiness. it has been a little rougher on me then on kaspar himself, i think. he pulled through it with flying colours and is almost back to his old self today, but i've been a little exhausted by it all. it's much harder to sleep in a sitting position with a 6 month old on your chest then it was with a 1 month old. that said, i'm still glad that kaspar's first real cold came only now and not earlier. he's old enough, that we've been able to communicate in a way.

otherwise the week has been pretty uneventful. i've been catching up with orders, while kaspar's been napping during the day. being sick has done some good - he's finally been sleeping well during naptime. this week we have had regular 3 hour long naps during the early part of the day. now, if we could only do the same at night... oh, i do count my blessings! having three hours to do some work, answer some emails and shower and all that has truly been wonderful.

tonight i'm keeping my post short. sort of tired. just watched the news. politically - nothing interesting. the elections are on monday. kaspar was planning on voting ndp but, he's considering a last minute change of heart. the green party candidate is cute. he was definitely sweet with her, when she came canvassing. i didn't even have to talk politics. a baby in my arms is a very good distraction! the weather is supposed to be weird for the next few days. more rain and snow. probably more rain for us, since we're right in the city. today was awesome, though. i was out in a sweater. +10 again! i don't miss the winter at all. oh.. i did hear about something very interesting today. on the radio... they talked about dogs. a study, where dogs have been used to detect cancer. some dogs can detect cancer in people. isn't that just fascinating? the world never ceases to amaze me... on that note, i'll call it a night.