On Happiness

Of late, I've been thinking a lot about happiness - about how to be happier and how to make those around me and those I love more happy. And then this morning, I opened up my inbox to find a forward by Uncle KN which pretty much sums it up. Here's an excerpt:

"Happiness does not come through destiny, one has to work for it. If you give goodness, you get back goodness. One should take care of Thoughts as they make the word. Take care of words as they result in Action. Be careful about actions as they become Habits. Habits build up your Character. That determines your Destiny and hence your Life." H.H. 14th Dalai Lama

I find that I am more impatient, more critical both of myself and others - and ironically more defensive, more stressed, more attached than I want to be or would like to think I am. I don't see people I care about as often as I'd like. I don't keep in touch with friends and family by phone or email as much as I'd like. I don't even sing as much as I used to. Yikes! Time for a change.

As I see it in my anal rententive mind, there are four steps to rectifying a problem:

1. recognition
2. acceptance
3. solutions
4. maintaining the changes

Two down - two to go.

I also started to think about what makes me happy. Here're a few:

• Tea in bed
• Warm pajamas from the dryer
• Curling up with a good book and a cup of tea on a cold, wet day (what is it about those days that beg for a good book?)
• After a long winter, stepping out of the house without a down jacket, hat, gloves & scarf for the first time
• Fresh flowers - orange tulips if I were being fussy
• A good chocolate cake and cold milk
• A good laugh over the past with friends/family
• Watching people enjoy something I made/did for them - food, crafts, birthday cakes etc.
• Family traditions
• Starting and finishing a project (it's the middle part that's hard)
• Singing with a group and playing guitar to some nostalgic, half-remembered song
• Not having to be the responsible/sensible one
• Little r

What makes you happy?

Daycares = germ pits?

These last few days have been hell. Little r finished on Monday the Amoxicillin course that he was prescribed and was recovering nicely when BAM!! out of no where we get side-swiped by round 2. Tuesday morning I notice that he has some sort of rash on his face and his We get a call from the daycare saying that he has a fever and that we should get him asap. Tuesday passes as we worry - the nights are the worst. Little r wants only his mummy and Daddy has to be just happy to pace and worry while not being allowed to even soothe baby. Wednesday we have to schedule an emergency trip to the hospital. The verdict is he has a delayed reaction to penicillin. Plus, he may have an ear infection. Follow up in two days. Great - he does have a reaction to penicillin, now he may also have a throat infection. Jeez!
Monday, we have to go back for yet another follow up visit. Little r has now been fever free for 3 days. Maybe he'll get a clean bill of health? Fingers crossed. In the meanwhile, the search for a nanny has begun. My boy is not suited for daycare it seems.... sigh!

Random photos on a Monday afternoon

Here's the book that I am reading today

while eating this lunch

in this park

thinking about my boys

How lucky am I?

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Little r is still adjusting to day care and we are all adjusting to life without grandma to fill in the gaps. The days are going by in a flurry of activity followed by an exhausted crash into bed in the evenings. There is never enough time for everything that needs to be done! This morning, little r howled bloody murder from the outside door of daycare till I left the room - the difference between last week and this:

• He gets that when we enter day care, he is staying behind
• No tears - this time he howled in annoyance not heartbreak or fear. After I dropped him off, I doubled back to check on him and there he was, happy as a clam, eating his apple sauce with the other kids. Sweet!

He is now wearing the hell out of his new clothes (his clothes are always new - he grows out of them too fast for them to wear out) as in he looks so damn cute in them. I will post some new picks soon but here's one of him in his Cookie Monster shirt. I know, so cute.. sigh! When he's not sick, clingy and tired, he is my happy, sweet and mischeivious boy. This picture captures that side of him and that's why I love it.


Turns out the reason poor little r had been so unhappy of late was that he had an ear infection. Something we found out when we went to emergency at SickKids hospital last Friday night. The doctor and nurse were so great there. They were quick and thorough and we didn't have to wait. Little r had to have an x-ray done and was so freaked out by the way he was Hannibal Lecter-ed into that plastic case - do you know what they do to keep kids still for x-rays? No? Well, I finally found a picture on the web so here it is. Not pretty. Rigden just about blew a gasket when he realized he had to be in it. Hopefully, we never have to see the damn thing again.

The verdict- anti-biotics. After some debate over whether drugs should be administered, sanity prevailed and he is now halfway through his course. Because we aren't giving him any added sugar to anything and his medication tastes like bubble gum, little r actually likes his medicine and I like that he is feeling better. So it's a win-win in my book!



In other changes, on Monday this week, I got a haircut. Nothing drastic, just about 4 - 6 inches of length gone. I now have a medium length, layered cut thanks to my new mane man (pun intended) JT.

JT is newly arrived from Korea and has been in Toronto just about a year. His english is fairly rudimentary but let me tell you, his way with hair is not. On being asked not to "thin" my hair out with thinning scissors (I hate the way it grows out - all puffy, weird and shaggy), JT instead suggested cutting some hair in the middle band (stay with me on this) at the root - just strategically and just enough to de-pouf hair. Trust me, he said, I am a professional. He may need some help with his english but he had that line down.

Quaking in my seat with visions of patchy hair running amok through my head, I took a deep breath and told him to go ahead. With his super sharp scissors, he took to my hair, cutting here and there. Sometimes I'd see a long strand fly and it took everything in me not to yelp "Stop". Still, there was something in his confidence (he showed me semi-nunchuck/gunslinger moves with his scissors! Oh, and the look he gave me when I said I was nervous? It spoke volumes in every language out there.) and the care he took in the details that made me stick it out and... voila! I love my new cut. No, I don't think you understand, I LOVE my new cut. It has put a new spring in my step, makes me want to dress more professionally, makes me feel like a grown up. It says, "Hi, I am a pulled together, grown-up woman who has her stuff figured out". JT's haircut did for me mentally, what her new haircut in the Thomas Crown Affair did for Rene Russo's career (momentarily anyway). So JT, thank you. YOU ROCK!

While we are also on the subject of external changes, let me also talk about this amusing little tidbit. People who know me know that I am a paint-my-nails-and-toes-nothing-other-than-a-nude-shade kind a girl. This Spring, I put that to rest. My toes have now seen Essie's Tart Deco (a pinky coral) and Sally Hansen's Insta-dri in Cinna-snap (deepest red). T of course is oblivious to this (he didn't even notice the haircut!!) but of all people, little r is just fascinated by my brightly coloured toes. He keeps wanting to play with them and, as with everything that he is intrigued by, wanting to put them in his mouth! This is something else that I found has such an effect on how I feel. Amazing how such a little change that most people can't even see (I still wear close-toed shoes most days) gives you a change in attitude!

In books, I'm on a french kick (those who know me, know that I often go on kicks): French Taste by Laura Calder (a cookbook), Women, Work and the Art of Savoir Faire: Business Sense and Sensibility by Mireille Guiliano, and a few more books on hold in the library. Some books on style, some books on organization and a book on housekeeping/cleaning (yes,really.). Also, I finally bit the bullet and have ordered a few books I've been thinking about: The Happiness Project and The boss of me. My wish list on Amazon continues to grow, rivalled only by my wishlist on Etsy. And to think, I'm Buddhist!

This, that and the other

I was so excited when my Cynthia Rowley patterns finally arrived. Remember those? I bought fabric and had all these visions of myself wearing a simple cotton dress with a boyfriend blazer/motorcycle jacket and these oxfords this spring What I failed to do was factor in that:
a) I might have a very limited budget due to daycare expenses and
b)my sewing skills are fairly rudimentary and the dress that I imagined in my head vs. the dress that I sewed might look pretty different.

Cut to a few weeks later, I managed to eke out a few hours a couple of minutes at a time to make my first dress (the last pattern in my post) and.... it was way too big. I measured myself realistically (no sucking in the gut and calculating my waist to be what I would like it to be, etc.) and accordingly made the dress. Yep, I floated in it. Then I thought, no biggie, I'll just take it in from the side. Not so fast sister - the bust was all floppy and puffy and weird because there is some gathering at the neckline - damn! Must adjust. Still I'm not losing hope. Next time, I know to look at the finished garment measurements and test to see what that might feel like before i start. Next up, another dress in the first CynthiaR pattern on my post, this time in this gorgeous blue crepe that was a steal at Fabricland.

I guess if I were to look at the silver lining on the cloud, it would be that I am not as big as I thought I was!

On that note, holy ass-growth Batman! I have gained 10 lbs since starting work. Note to self: Without little r to heft up and down the stair 10 times a day, no 1 hr. walks, no breast-feeding during the day and sitting for most of 8 hrs a day at work, I can't eat like I was during pregnancy or mat leave. Actually, I eat worse at work than I do when I am at home. So once the MIL leaves, I am going to go back to eating more sensibly both at home and at work. This means salads for lunch. This means cutting back on sweet stuff. Jeez, I guess I better find some recipes that are at least interesting if not exciting for this to last. Without time to work out regularly, diet is all I can do. The only other thing I can think of is to get a treadmill at home and get T to do baby-duty while I work out for a bit. T would most likely be up for it. hmmm.... decisions, decisions. Can I commit to working out often enough so that the treadmill doesn't become the world's most expensive coat rack, taunting me with it's presence? More to come on this.

More project ideas that I have come across: a mei-tai for me to carry little r around in, a travel sack for his stroller (my innovative friend Kimiko fashioned a wonderful travel sack for her little bean and it looks totally do-able), some more play pants for little r, some more dresses for me - this is going to be the summer of the dress and comfy shoes for me.

I must share that while little r was laid up and I was hanging out with him while he was sleeping, I finally watched Julie & Julia and I really liked it! So much so that it has inspired me to start looking at more French recipes - the key word here is looking. If I actually started cooking, then that would really prove a huge hurdle to the afore-mentioned ass-growth dilemma. What's a girl to do?

baby + first time at day care = colds + clingy kid + exhausted mama

I KNEW IT - I thought it the minute I walked in and I was right. Litte r is sick with a cold and cough. So, sweet Sabine and cute Keiran thank you for sharing your germs with r. This as I understand will be a recurring theme over the next 6 months to year. Sigh! Can't wait.

After a not so great Day 2 - a whiny 4 hours at daycare ending with r howling in his stroller all the way back home down Queen St. East as I got looks from people who clearly thought I either beat my child for fun or that I couldn't hear him crying which led to a frustrated mama in tears - Day 3 A.D(After Daycare)dawned on a sick little r. Cold, cough and a little touch of fever - munchkin down - roger that.

We kept him home from daycare under the tender ministrations of grandma as T and I went to work to bring home the bacon. When I hurried home early from work, the poor kid was so exhausted from his cold that all I was greeted with was a little whimper as he slumped back onto a pile of pillows. Poor grandma was so glad to have reinforcements after a day of worrying over the little sicky. All yesterday evening was spent holding little r and trying to get him to drink water and eat something - anything. We are talking about a kid who scarfs down 5 momos after his dinner and a whole orange here. (He takes after his mother I guess - if he's not eating, it is cause for concern.) I kept wishing he would perk up and scuttle off opening cabinets, toppling books and destroying houseplants. This limp little body clinging to me was a far cry from my energetic bundle of joy.

Today he was feeling a little better and by 10:30 or so, he looked like he was feeling a little bit more upbeat so it was time to get back on the horse - off we went to daycare again, this time with our own germs to share. We'll see how it goes.

Growing pains...

After much wringing of hands and worrying and discussing and researching, T and I finally decided that we should choose daycare as the solution to our childcare needs.

Today was little r's first day at his daycare centre... sigh! my baby is all grown up. Here's his little cubby with his jacket and change of clothes and his basket for his diapering things.





We dropped him off this morning, his grandma and I and he was fine. As you can see, he looked like he was having a good time.



We brought him in with the understanding that he was going to be there only till 11:30 or so. As we left, r barely even noticed that we left. Then I call back about an hour and a half later and I am told that he finally did look up from playing and on finding that we were not around, cried and cried till he finally fell asleep exhausted. My heart just broke. My poor little r!

This morning, I left with my heart full of trepidation. There was a little girl with a very big cough and a little boy eating yellow, mucus-y snot along with his cereal at snack time. They would be sharing toys (and germs) with little r. Call me a helicopter mommy but I just wanted to swoop him away at that point. Then I find out how much he cried and how unhappy he was... what is a mother to do? Rationally I know that he needs to socialize, that he will fall ill just like he will scrape his knee and fall down at some point but that doesn't mean I don't want to be at home with him and take care of all his needs anyway. (Though that would probably make both him and me crazy at some point.) Of course, he had a good nap, woke up, ate a wonderful lunch and went home with grandma who has assured me that he is happy as ever and now playing.

I was vaguely mollified by friends who told me that they had been through similar situations and that it was normal - just vaguely. I am not looking forward to tomorrow morning, let me tell you... *grumble* growing pains suck.. *grumble* (did you think the title referred just to little r?)

I didn't say this blog would be all sunshine, did I?