Wednesday night was one of the scariest I've had in my entire life.
Franklin wasn't feeling very well at daycare on Tuesday so D stayed home with him on Wednesday to give him a rest. Apparently he was OK during the day but he still wasn't the same Franklin we are used to - no happy dance*, very little eating, and a lot of frustration/tired whining...

Wednesday night is squash league for D so he left as I was fixing Franklin's dinner. I was early but I intended to put Franklin to bed soon as he was yawning at 5:30 and didn't have much energy for playing. I placed Franklin in his highchair and I noticed how hot he was. I thought I would check his temperature when we got upstairs for his bath. He took about two bites and closed his eyes. This was strange. It was very early. Too early for him to be so exhausted that he would be closing his eyes during dinner!

I picked him up and carried him upstairs. He felt so hot! I took off all his clothes and then ran around the house with him, trying to find the thermometre I had probably put somewhere so I could "easily find it" in an emergency.

After a lot of cursing, I found it in the emergency first aid kit (go figure) and brought him upstairs.

103 degrees!

I thought that couldn't be right. I rechecked three more times and it was the same temperature. I ran a cool bath and put him in it. He wasn't very responsive but the bath seemed to wake him up long enough to ask for his Rhino sponge so I thought he was getting better.
I checked his temperature again, after the bath -

102.5 degrees!

That was it. I ran with him downstairs and called D and my mother. D came home and we went straight to the hospital. They were very good there. They thought Franklin was quite cute and tried their best to find out what was wrong. Even though it took about 3 hours for the examination, x-ray and diagnosis, the amount of time we were kept waiting reassured me that it was most likely not an emergency as the Tylenol had brought his fever down.

So, apparently Franklin has the beginning stages of pneumonia. It's strange how fast that came on. He only had a little bit of a chest cold and then, wham.

scary scary scary
- and not something I want to ever go through again.

*(oh yes, the happy dance: this is a dance that Franklin does where he marches up and down as fast as he can - a bit like a cross between Jennifer Beals in Flashdance and that strange thing they do in that show, Riverdance)

Nothing like doing your assignment at 2:47 in the morning after waking up from an evening nap to see Demi Moore getting angry at her fictional child on TV and realizing that you still have a 500 word paper to regurgitate on intergovernmental relations and the role of Canadian public servants...

... and then taking a blog break

... and then realizing that perhaps you need more time for yourself that doesn't get snatched in little snippets in between hurrying over to see Franklin at lunch and going to go pick him up after work. As a result, perhaps won't be so prone to sit up late at night procrastinating a dead easy assignment just because you want some time to sit and think to yourself about dirtyolive thoughts and nothing else, just thoughts to yourself about stuff, any stuff.

... and then getting incredibly angry at yourself for even thinking that the afternoon you had off work could actually be spent in the library doing some reading and not picking your child up from daycare early to spend "quality time" with him and therefore not preventing the fall he took where he hit the edge of his nose on a wooden stepping platform at daycare and you weren't available to be contacted and so he suffered that whole 15 minutes of crying without your healing powers of touch within the well-planned out 5 minute vicinity scenario you had envisioned when you decided to pay $900.00/mth to have him in this daycare in the first place.

(insert big sigh here)

One of the strangest things that happens to you when you are raising a toddler is how the normally mundane things get you incredibly excited. Every day, on our way to daycare and work, Franklin and I point out the trucks, cars and buses to each other. As you can imagine, we have a pretty full conversation. It gets even more exciting when we see a tractor or a large construction vehicle

I am so engrossed in the game of spotting cool things to show Frank that even after I have left him at daycare, or am on my own going to class, I will see a bus and yell. "BUS!!!!!!!!!" to nobody but myself.

There was a maintenance worker fixing the door outside the bookstore cafe this morning and he had an extremely large collection of screwdrivers in a large, complicated looking toolbox - it all looked pretty impressive. The guy working on the door stopped what he was doing and watched as I peered in and oooohed and ahhhhhed like a weirdo. Franklin wasn't even there but I was talking about the toolbox as if he was:

"Wow! That's a lot of screwdrivers! What do you do with all those screwdrivers? Look at all the colours! You must be very busy to have all those screwdrivers!...."

Ah well, all this talking is good for Franklin. He actually asked one of the daycare providers to be "gentle" while she was washing his face!
Last night, he asked D to put on his Bob the Builder DVD.

I've been a little pensive the last couple of days. On Saturday, the police paid a visit to our complex and picked up a woman who lives near our home. Last summer I talked to her and her children quite a bit. She seemed a little socially inept but not overly unstable. I think that she has had a pretty stressful life. She is very defensive, aloof, and insists on teaching her 7 and 5 year old children that "no one's looking out for them but themselves..."
She definitely wasn't popular around here. She loves to garden though and we would talk about plants and the possibility of a communal compost for the complex.


Once I started work, I would see her sitting on her front porch sipping a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette. We would always acknowledge each other and I would occasionally see her two sons after school.


After being at work for awhile I stopped seeing her in her usual seat. I now realize that I hadn't actually seen her children for quite awhile - although I saw trucks and other toys on the porch.


Last weekend, after the three of us came back from the park, we saw a police van and unmarked car in our parking lot. As I walked past, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach that all the authority was for this neighbour. As it turns out, about an hour later a friend of mine saw the police lead her away to the van.


Of course, I don't know what's going on. There is no way for me to find out and it's definitely not my business. Nevertheless, I am worried about her and the two children. I haven't seen them for so long. I feel like I should have noticed (or at least wondered about) something being up a long time ago. Egotistical of me isn't it...


I know that, rationally, the safest thing to do was keep my distance from a woman who, in my opinion, had questioning mental stability. However, I can't help but wonder, what happened to the "community" I thought I was moving into? I really didn't get to know her family at all. She is a single Mom and seemed quite lonely. If I had invited her into my home at least once would she have felt she had support? Would she even have accepted my offering of friendship?


This is crazy. I have no idea what's going on.


I look for the three of them every time I walk past that porch now. No one has been home since Saturday. I feel like crying but I'm not exactly sure why.

Now, I'm warning you. This post gets quite mooshy, even more so than I've mooshed in previously mooshy posts...

Today, as I was getting ready for my lay-off next week, I gathered together my mini rubik's cube, my shells from tofino, and took down the pictures of Franklin and D off my wall. I was marveling at how beautiful our son was and thinking about this post. It is true. One cannot understand what it's like to be a mother until you are completely in the thick of it. It's not like a pet. It's not like a partner. There is a beautiful being that you are responsible for introducing to the world. Everything you were and hope to be is apart of this process. It is a beautiful, scary, overwhelming and moving feeling.

After I pondered for awhile, staring at the pictures, I got an email from D asking me what my beverage of choice was for this evening and what kind of things did I have in mind... It was a normal email for D. Funny and thoughtful. So then.... and you know what's coming next... I starting thinking about D, and when we first met. We knew what a large occasion our introduction was as soon as he walked into the bar I was working in. We talked about the rest of our lives together after spending less than 48 hours with each other. We stood in the airport holding and kissing and whispering for 30 minutes before his plane left off. D used to tell me that every once and awhile he would (and wonderfully, still does...) look and me and feel so incredibly lucky. He gets a warm feeling in his stomach and actually tears up. I still get tears in my eyes when I look at him as well. He is such an amazing person.

A fortune teller once told me that the people you have relationships with in your life (familial, personal, confrontational...) last for lifetime after lifetime after lifetime. One is always trying to improve on these relationships and I wonder if she meant that nirvana was a sort of success in all the people that you touch. Or perhaps, that once you have found a person who touches you this deeply you are able to let them go in the next life and work on other relationships. I could go on and on about this actually - but you'd need a bong and some candles so I'll stop here.

Who knows, I have a feeling I am rambling at this point. What I want to say is that although there are times when I feel that I would give my clitoris for a little more sleep or time to read one more page, I seriously cannot believe the life that I am leading at this point.
I am happy. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. I am happy.

yay me.

So... does the fact that when D and I get a little silly and sing rhymes to Franklin that are a little psychotic mean that we will eventually raise a lunatic?

One example of this is the following (sung to that "Dradle, Dradle, Dradle..." tune):

Franklin, Franklin, Franklin
We made you out of spunk
Franklin, Franklin, Franklin
You're gonna be a punk

yay!

ahem...

As well, it seems there are a few people out there with some pretty specific taste. It sure is nice to nominated for a Bloggie! In fact, it's so nice I went over and nominated a couple of specific people I like to read as well.
So if you are so inclined, apparently the way it all works is if I get enough nominations I could even be in the running. Of course, it's an honour just to be nominated....

Courtesy of Claire, this has got to be one of the coolest things I have ever seen on the internet in a long time. This comes from top left pixel, whose photographs I routinely use for my desktop wallpaper at home and at work. Sometimes, he makes me want to move to Toronto.


On the other hand, for Franklin, this is the coolest thing. He watched it once (from an email someone sent D) and has asked for it over and over again. He says, "heeepau, heeeepau, heepau!".


Perhaps I should add then, for D, he was thinking this was quite entertaining.

It has snowed so much last night (and still today!) that there is a nice slick cover over all the ice that has formed from the last snowfall and subsequent partial melt.
Ahhhh, perfect conditions for an accident!

As a result, and to Franklin's absolute delight, we took the bus to work today. It is beautiful out - but deadly. I'm not worried about my driving or the car, I'm more worried about the other drivers out there who drive like stiff armed robots and slam on the brake with every skid.

It's still snowing out there and it's 12 noon! Boy, it sure smells great. This is very strange weather for Victoria.

The last time it snowed similar to this was the Christmas that D and I met. He was supposed to leave Edmonton (where I was going to school) and go back to Victoria (to work). There was a record snowfall of 124 cm in two days and his flight was delayed. He called work to say it was pointless coming back as all roads were blocked - and that he has met the woman of his dreams and really thought it was important to stay.

The rest, as they say, is history...

Wooooooo hoooooooo! It snowed today! It snowed today! Snow in Victoria that has actually remained on the ground the entire day!
Beautiful.
Franklin and I took a drive by the ocean at sunset(unfortunately it was extremely windy and not suitable for a stroll) and it was gorgeous.

Other than the snowy stroll we took early this morning and the sunset cruise this evening, the day was intermixed with naps, lunch and TV shopping.

Ahhhh, TV shopping. Such horrific torture. We were given a great present this year - a DVD player. We are very excited to try out this new technology but alas, our television is so old that the player does not relate to it's wrinkly little back-side. We have been looking around for a nice, acceptable TV that is perhaps a little bigger (so I can read subtitles without my opera glasses and D can see a hockey puck) but not so big that we need to get a larger living room to accommodate the size. We have been to a couple of places and have seen great TVs at good prices (or payment plans) but everyone seems out of stock.

Sooo, either everyone got a DVD player and has the same problem or people went a little too nuts on the boxing day mob-style of shopping glee. We just want a small to medium size, somewhat modern television set. It seemed too much to ask today.

On the other hand, I have learned a vital parenting rule.
Do not, under any circumstances, bring your vehicle-crazy child anywhere near the toy department or any other car-type display in the hope that he will get some kind of entertainment. This is actually a form of child torture.

Hey Frank! Look at the cool cars/trucks/tractors/buses... No, you can't have them/take them out of their boxes/shake them/break open the glass display case to drool over them...
Ok, had enough? No? Oh well, gotta go!

Yeah, that doesn't go over well...

I went to work on the last day of the week - thinking I would be talking to publishing companies all day. Funny how everyone else seemed to have the foresight to take the bloody day off.

However, I did get to talk to someone I wouldn't normally get to have a conversation with and as a result, I have now spent 3 hours on the net reading about Jacques Lacan's mirror-stage and Julian Paul Keenan's theory of a child's sense of self-awareness.
This all started with a comment to a friend about Franklin's Christmas. Our son has recently started to realize that the baby in the mirror is actually himself. He brings out his special cheesy grin, plays peek-a-boo and will occasionally pat himself on the chest when he comes across his reflection. It's not only adorable, but incredibly fascinating. His personality is really starting to come through these last few weeks and I love it.

I think I'm going to try this Gallup "mirror test" tomorrow...

Christmas was marvelous. I hope everyone had a happy, healthy holiday and an exciting new years celebration last night.

D and I spent it eating takeout Chinese food and talking about resolutions. I generally don't make them. I reserve those future modification strategies for my birthday. This year however, we thought about what we'd like to do in the new year as a family and as a couple.
It was a nice evening and at 11:30pm we stopped trying to fool ourselves into thinking we would actually make it to midnight and headed to bed.

party on...