teddy bears playing sports

Well, my car died again. The radiator cap seems to have cracked or given out or some such thing. I can't remember if I mentioned this last January, when it happened the first time. It couldn't reoccur on a busier week, either. I have a dentist appointment tomorrow, a doctor's appointment Wednesday, a LLL meeting on Tuesday, Baby Club on Thursday, and tickets to see Henry Rollins on Friday. On Saturday morning we're going to see relatives in Windsor, and we're not coming home until Sunday. Somewhere in there I wanted to fit in a long walk in the city with my mom gang and a little time at the local Early Years Centre, but with the car on the fritz, a mere skeleton of multitasking will have to do.

This weekend we did some odd things. On Saturday we took a drive to the local mall, where the Boy took several photos of some shopping carts that've been awesomely mangled by snowplows and left adrift in the far corners of the parking lot. He's working on a photo essay. The dirty drifts were way too unsafe for the Sprout, so the two of us sat in the car & talked quietly.

After this, we got some yummy Greek lunch & checked out the t-shirt transfer paper at Staples. I fell in love with the magnet sheets, but couldn't think of any reasonable use for them...so I regretfully put the package back. On our way to Blacks, we wandered into Once Upon A Child - and everything changed.

It's a used children's clothing store, very clean, very organized. I quite like shopping at places like Value Village, but they lose points for poorly labelled clothing & overcrowded racks. (Also, the only time I was able to get out to VV with the Boo, he started crying and I couldn't concentrate.) We bought 3 undershirts & 2 sleepers in the next size up. This was a heroic act of restraint on my part, as I saw many, many cute & necessary items (like, oh USED NURSING PILLOWS!!! The heavier Blake gets, the more I need me some of that 7 dollar action!)

Unfortunately, this led to yet another conflict with my mother. We've been having a rough couple of days - her mother came on Friday and left a nice cloud of bad-tempered confusion in her wake (as well as some cold cuts). Lately my mother's been ragging me about the clothes Blake wears. She's always making comments about how tight his stuff is and how we need to bring out the new clothes. She didn't seem to think that the clothing I bought yesterday was big enough. Hey, for $1.50, I'll accept 3 months of use.

I admit it. I have a huge problem with putting his well-beloved clothing away. I found it very hard to accept the idea that his Lil Pumpkin suit was way too small. I suppose that in some ways, I'm so terrified of missing a moment of his infancy that I want him to be a newborn forever. Or maybe it's just that I fell in love with him wearing a certain set of clothing and I don't want to see them go. That said, there are definitely some items that need to be retired.

So I'm dealing with it in my typical neurotic fashion: I'm making the Boy hold my hand. Every day we wait until Blake is in a tractable mood, and then we try clothing on him until he gets irritated. That way I can say goodbye to the clothing when I'm sitting right next to someone who understands me perfectly. The Boy feels the same way. So it's bearable.

The Boy & I coo over 2-day-old Blake. We really haven't changed very much.

I've also spent a great deal of this weekend just sorting through second-hand baby clothes from my cousin. Truly Shelley was onto something when she likened this to having a second job. I love the generosity, but I hate the effort. And I'm also getting real tired of the testosterone-soaked clothing design for little boys. He's not gay yet. Give it a rest, dominant culture.

At least Scout always brings us clothes with clean, simple designs, bold colours and adorable details. She's got good taste, that girl. Good taste in maternity clothing, too. She just laughs when I tell her that. To hear her tell it, she's just making an investment in her own future wardrobe.

A new summer outfit from Scout. Kick out the jams, mf's!!!

So, you may have noticed that I've been a bit depressed of late. It could be ascribed to a number of causes. Living at home with my parents. Parenting an infant. Poor financial outlook. Isolation from friends & former activities. But what if I'm just depressed? I was pretty depressed when I lived here the year before I got married, and that carried on in my first 3 months or so in Nova Scotia. I was REALLY depressed in Nova Scotia with the whole O:NtFP situation, and that only continued in Toronto when I started teaching in Hogsboro. The only times when I haven't been continually depressed in the last 5 years are few & far between: falling in love with the Boy, hitting my stride in Nova, being pregnant. You may notice that two of those have to do with great swooping rushes of hormones.

Maybe depressed is just the way I am. Maybe I don't need a fabulous pad, more money & lots of social engagements (I have the friends, just not the meetings). Maybe I need lots and lots of sessions with a competent counsellor. Or maybe I need medication again.

Or, you know. In the words of The Girlfriends Guide to the First Year, maybe I'm just being postpartumish. Hard to tell.

If taking pictures of babies in adult-sized glasses is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 3/28/2004 06:49:00 p.m.