Students Of Life

Be back soon.

Oh, yeah and looks like T2 is due Early March…

It’s been a tumultuous time in the B-T household for the past month or so. I found out that I was slotted to go to Afghanistan for six months in Apr 2010. We were nervous, excited, worried, happy and planning all at once.  I was nervous about leaving Isaac for so long, but excited at the prospect of a tour. We were sitting on the news for quite sometime since we wanted to tell my mom first and she and dad were away on holidays. This is just not the type of news you share with your mom when she’s visiting someone elses home. This is the type of news that each mother deals with in her own way and needs the time and space to do this.

Anyhow; it all turned out to be a moot point anyways. As soon as we heard about the tour we figured the responsible thing to do was start using birth control. I got a prescription and decided I should take a pregnancy test before starting. Lo and behold, what should appear but two pink lines

T2 (aka Baby T2) is due to arrive in Spring 2010; more info to come after ultrasound and dr apt on thursday. Isaac is going to be a big brother and we couldn’t be more happy.

that make Isaac, well, Isaac. Like:

- refusing to eat supper in his chair so we have to feed him in the tub*

- dancing in the living room waving his arms and tapping his thigh

and

- ‘reading’ his books, usually upside down

*If you feel like lecturing me on giving in to a toddler, I invite you to come spend a night and feed the screaming baby at 01h00 because he didn’t eat supper.

For the Aug long weekend we met our friends Brian, Lisa and Chase in Outlook, Sk for a few fun days of camping. We easily had the best camp site in the park; lots of great trees and lots of room. We took the boys swimming at the pool, and walked the skytrail (an old converted railway bridge and part of the transcanada trail) and ate and ate and ate. The weather was great, especially considering all the rain they got back in Manitoba.

Isaac sharing his Papa with his buddy Chase

We made ample use of the play pens

Isaac toddled everywhere! Again our site was great for this!

Isaac was constantly drawn to the water tap

walking the sky trail

Things are going pretty well for us here in Winnipeg. Isaac is now officially a toddler and insists on walking everywhere. Work is going well enough and I’m slowly learning my job, although I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m proficent yet. Thankfully I work in a great office and people are more than happy to answer my million questions about ‘now what?’. My job is staff work so I spend my days researching problems on the phone, via e-mail and internet, then I write clear and consise (I’m working on this part) little reports for people who make way more money than me so that they can make informed decisions. Soon I’ll be learning about Operational Testing and Evaluation and then I’ll write test plans to confirm the airworthiness of new equipment being implimented for air traffic control in the Canadian Forces. But I digress, this post was not suppose to be about work it is about one of my favorite topics since having Isaac; this post is about sleep.

Isaac has been a little off lately, he is happy enough, but he’s had a slight fever and his appetite is pretty hit or miss; we’re going to blame it on teething. He’s still doing very well at the sitters napping twice a day for a combined total of 3 – 5 hours sleep. He’s still doing well at falling asleep on his own, although somehow I’ve slipped back into the habit of breastfeeding just before bed. We lay him down, rub his back for about a minute and then say good night and shut the door. 8 times out of 10 he is still awake, but he goes to sleep pretty quickly after we shut the door.

I had weaned him of all his night feeds except a 21h30/22h00 top up and he was sleeping through until 5h00 or 6h00 in the morning. I have now cut out his morning nursing period, and he doesn’t nurse before nap time unless I’m around; in which case he doesn’t get why he can’t have boob, so he won’t sleep until he gets it. But Jay can put him down for a nap if I haven’t nursed him, although admittedly it does take longer.

In the last couple weeks however, Isaac has started waking up three to four times a night to nurse again. As a general rule, he’s up for twenty minute to nurse and I can get him back down again very easily, but I have to say, I do miss him sleeping through the night. I expect this too shall pass. And I’m still claiming we’ve made progress because 1) Isaac falls asleep on his own and 2) he spends the entire night in him own bed.

One thing I haven’t been very good at since Isaac was born is carving out time for myself. When he turned one and finally started sleeping well, I decided it was time to do something just for me. I found a yoga studio (well a woman who teaches in her studio-like basement) within walking distance from the house that offers evening classes. So on Wednesday nights I put Isaac to bed, get a good hour plus to hang with Jason, then head off to yoga for an hour or so. It’s been great, and I love that it is so close!

We went camping last weekend, and had a blast. There were a few tense moments when it seemed Isaac would never sleep again (ah, yeah, napping in a tent…not this kid). All I can say is thank goodness for carriers, I was reminded of the early months (and months and months) when the only way to get Isaac down was to walk him.

Isaac loved playing in the dirt

He enjoyed the camping fare

He wanted to walk everwhere, but still prefers to hold hands if he can’t cruise on furniture (or the dog)

And of course he loved his parents undivided attention

Bailey came too, but he was too busy being on the look out for squirrels to pose for a good picture

(not so) Interesting side note: the toque and long sleeves and pants were more mesquito related than weather. Thankfully it was cool enough that he could tolerate the clothes rather than drenching the poor kid in ‘family’ (less deet?) bug spray. I actually made him ‘camping pants’ the night before we left with cuffed ankles to keep the ’sketers out.

I took Bailey for a walk this evening and was surprised to be visited by an old friend. Well, in memory anyways.  I don’t know if it was the sunshine, or the quiet solitude, but my mind started to wander and suddenly there was Jean-Yves.

Jean-Yves was on the RMC Nijmegen team with me. On the second day of the march, I was in all sorts of pain. I didn’t say anything to anyone, but as you can see in this picture, it was pretty evident.

pain

That grumpy looking guy beside me, that’s Jean-Yves. As you can see he was in a bit of his own pain.  We were obviously hurting so our smart team captain had put us both up front. We didn’t talk at all during the march that day. When we got back to camp he asked me how I was doing. I mumbled fine and tried my best not to cry. He reached over and hugged me because that’s who Jean-Yves was. It didn’t matter that he was in just as much if not more pain, he wanted to make me feel better. The last two days of the march went well enough for our team (severe ankle sprains aside). We all finished and it was a great experience.

Now Jean-Yves had a bad heart and as part of his physiotherapy he was suppose to walk. After Nijmegen he was looking for a new walking partner. I had two large dogs who needed daily walks and Jean -Yves lived around the corner from me so we started to walk together. Every weekday morning, rain or shine, Jean-Yves would be knocking at my front door at 06h00 and we’d walk 6 – 10 km. He wasn’t so keen on the dogs at first (did I mention they were large) but he warmed up to them. And as I got more and more pregnant he even took their leashes and helped scoop; this from someone who was not a dog person. We talked about anything and everything and I really enjoyed our morning chats. I miss my friend, but I cherish my memories.