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Fawnahareo's Place: Life as a mom in the YukonDon't have an MSN Passport? To leave a comment, sign in as fawnsguest, password 99Nanuq
January 17 Today feels like the dayI had planned to get the Mexico and Germany pictures up here before moving on, but then I thought, well, why not put them on the new blog? (Whenever I get around to it, I mean...) So, from now on, you can read all about my comings and goings at the new blog:
January 16 With a little help from my friendsAfter last Tuesday's disastrous attempt to walk Nanuq between work and suppertime I realized that I really would need help in order to survive the two weeks without Michael. And the help came, sometimes from unexpected places. My neighbour Heather took Nanuq out with her dog Kodiak on Wednesday. Tim took him on Thursday (and again yesterday). Hugh and Anissa walked down from their neighbourhood to take on the Friday walk. I got a suprise e-mail from Carole (Yukon Chatterbug) on the weekend, offering to take Nanuq out with her dog if we happened to live close by (which we do). Thanks so much to all of you! Nanuq and I are both very grateful. Speaking of help and surprises, I was reading through my blog stats last week and came across a referring site that included my name in it. Curious, I clicked on it and was brought to a page that included my most recent post ("The green, green grass of home") and a couple of pictures of Jade from the Halloween photo album. It also said "Copyright Fawnahareo 2007" at the bottom of the page. Of course, I hadn't created the page, so you might understand that I felt as though I had temporarily stepped into the Twilight Zone. As I was trying to figure things out, I got an e-mail from George (who plays a mean bass in The Big Band) saying he'd killed a few minutes by throwing together a page for me to play around with, since he knew I was looking for a new bloggy home. Wow, what a nice thing to do! Big Band rehearsals consist of a lot of practicing and not much chatting, so I don't actually know anyone in the group that well. But now I know someone I can refer people to for web hosting and design services. Thanks, George! And now while we're on the subject of moving blogs, I'm just about ready to move house over to WordPress (although I wish I could take George's photo album module over with me, since it looks like I'll now have to start using Flickr for photo sharing). I think I've got the mashed-together-paragraphs thing figured out. I hope to be seeing more comments once I've moved over -- I know I've got a few lurkers, and this is SO all about you, you know. January 15 Home sickIt's not often that I actually stay home because of a cold, but Jade and I both started sniffling yesterday and she woke up twice last night because she couldn't breathe. When we got up this morning, Jade looked pretty awful and by the end of breakfast, I'd decided we'd better not inflict our pestilential presence on the world. The strange thing is that I wasn't feeling so very terrible myself, but by the time I'd called work and the daycare, I felt as though I'd been run over by a train and just wanted to crawl back into bed. Jade, on the other hand, started running around like a wild child. Fortunately, I was able to doze on the couch for an hour (not sleeping, mind you) while she read books, banged on the piano, knocked over the guitar, asked me to pick it up, righted it herself, and strummed the strings. I have never had so many colds in my life as since Jade started daycare last January. I hope that this is something we'll both outgrow, starting about now. We both just finished lunch and now it is time for a nap. Sorry, make that naps. January 13 Dancing babyDarn, it's almost 11 p.m. again. I was hoping to get a few more things done tonight, like reading more of the midwifery material I need to have done before a big meeting on Tuesday, and also posting photos from Germany and Mexico because I promised these would be on my blog in the annual letter I sent out to friends and family last week. Most of the letters have arrived at their destinations, but the photos have not! Sorry folks. If you're here for pics, keep checking back; it's near the top of my list. Many of the evenings where I haven't been getting things done, it's been because I've been getting stuck at the piano. The Big Band has a dance coming up on Saturday the 26th, so I've been practicing for that, but I've also been working on a new song. I was pleased with it when I finished it, and then I got disenchanted with it, but tonight I made some changes that have got me excited about it again. So I just couldn't leave the piano when it felt so close! I just wanted to write a quick post to tell you all about some of Jade's new words. Today I heard two words that I'd never heard her use before: "lap" and "dance". Although she didn't use them together, thank goodness. "Dance" came first. I've been playing lots of music during the day, and we often dance together. Some of the big band-type music really gets the heart pumping, particularly when you're swinging a toddler around in the air. Anyway, I had some big band music on this afternoon, and Jade came over to me, put her arms out to me and said, "dance?" How could I resist? She's getting good at it, too, and not just in my arms. Charmaine came to babysit for an hour so that I could walk Nanuq and since she'd just taken her first belly-dancing class, she showed Jade some of her new moves. We have a budding belly-dancer in the house! The second word came about when I sat down this evening (on the toilet, no less) and Jade came running over clutching several books. Normally she asks to be read to by saying, "book? Book? Yeah?" but this time she said, "lap?" instead. Despite being caught with my pants down (snort) we sat together and read for a bit. Yesterday she surprised me by pointing at the koala on her toothbrush and happily announcing "lala!" I also learned that an umbrella is a "lella" and a hippo is an "ippo". (We're making sure she learns all the most important words first, you see.) So those are the highlights of the day. Hmm, I sure hope Jade sticks with belly dancing and leaves the lap-dancing out of her repertoire... January 11 The devil (didn't) make me do it - Part IIPart I was posted yesterday.
It's possible that at other times I would have made a different decision, but this time I decided that the only thing to do was to phone the cash machine company. Feeling foolish, I went into a meeting room so that the call would be more private (the joys of working in a cubicle) and dialed the toll-free number.
"Help Desk, " I heard. "And you got $180." "Yes." "So you got 20 bucks extra." "Yes." I must give him credit for not sounding completely incredulous as he clarified the situation. The poor guy didn't quite know what to do. I didn't have the cash machine receipt with me in the meeting room and I had forgotten to check the bank records online to make sure of the withdrawal amount on record. I gave him my name and number and told him I'd call back when I'd gotten the rest of the information. He did thank me for my honesty and told me, "This is the way that you receive blessings." To be honest, I had been hoping he'd just say I could keep the $20. But blessings are good, too. Off I went and checked my bank records online: there it was, a withdrawal for $161.20, so no problems there. I got the receipt out from my wallet. When I called back, Didier had left the office, but Mark took my call and started putting my reference number into his computer. "You're going to think I'm weird," I said. "Am I? Well, I'm ready to be entertained!" he said cheerfully. "Oh yes, you're the honest person who called in that everyone's been talking about in the office today!" Isn't it heart-warming to know you can provide a good story for a whole office full of people you don't know? Hmm, I guess it's not so different from blogging. Mark told me that the cash machine is operated by Wal-Mart so I should call their cash office, and he gave me the number to call, if I should decide to do so. Well, I'd gone this far, so why stop now? The woman in the Wal-Mart cash office sounded a bit guarded at first. These poor people probably only ever deal with irate customers who've been short-changed at the machines. When I explained what had happened, she said, "Oh, but the machines all balanced out in the last few days." Which probably means that the poor guy who used the machine before me got short-changed $20 and didn't notice it. Since it's been a few days and nobody has gone to the cash office claiming to be short $20,the woman told me I could just keep it. Woo hoo! Honesty does pay! I wonder if this means I don't get any blessings? January 10 The devil (didn't) make me do itThis week I feel as though I'm being tested. Yesterday I mentioned the accidents I get into whenever I'm in a rush. This week, single parenting has meant that I've been running from pillar to post, wreaking all kinds of havoc. Besides spilling soup all over Jade's toys and tripping over computer cords, narrowly avoiding a broken nose, I had a run-in on Sunday that I really wanted to run away from. I was doing errands with a cheerful but very tired Jade (since she hadn't napped at all that afternoon) and decided to get a BBQ chicken from the Superstore in order to save myself cooking supper that night. There were no chickens left, but I still ended up picking up about $80 of groceries. In the dark and freezing parking lot, with suppertime looming and Jade practically asleep, I hurriedly installed Jade into her carseat, packed the groceries into the cloth bags I had forgotten in the car, and then went to return the grocery cart. I had to pass between my car and the one parked next to it and I remember thinking, "I'd better not hit that car" before the corner of the extra-large shopping cart clipped the edge of the car's passenger side mirror. I winced at the blow and the sound of cracking plastic. A closer look confirmed that a piece had broken right off, leaving an unsightly hole behind the intact mirror of the Chevy Impala. I looked around. No one was there. No one had seen me. The owner of the car probably wouldn't even notice the damage to the passenger side until days later. I could very easily have driven away, but for the weight of my conscience holding me back. Sighing, I found a piece of scrap paper in my purse, a pen, and scribbled out a note as best I could with half-frozen ink. I tucked the note under the windshield wiper and headed -- carefully -- home. I got a call the next day from the owner of the Impala. He was very nice about the whole situation and kindly shopped around to find a good price on a replacement part. He also very generously offered to cover the cost of installing and painting the part if I covered the cost of buying it and shipping it from Grande Prairie($150). He didn't even get annoyed when he came by the house to collect the cheque and I had to admit that I'd searched high and low and couldn't find the chequebook. I decided to go to Wal-Mart to use their cash machine and pick up some picture-hanging wire at the same time. I know there's a fee for using those machines, but I didn't want to try to park downtown and struggle into the bank with Jade in tow. I put my card into the machine and requested a $150 withdrawal, only to be told the amount had to be a multiple of 20. I revised my request to $160 and then was told that there had been an error processing my request. Biting my tongue, I re-inserted the bank card for one last try. This time I got the $160 I requested... plus $20 more. I didn't quite know what to do. Does the machine actually belong to Wal-Mart? Does the money in there actually belong to them or to some independent company? Besides, even though the receipt said $160 (plus the $1.20 fee) I wanted to make sure that it was actually $160 that had come out of my bank account. I wrote down the toll-free number from the machine and headed home. To be honest, I stewed about this for a couple of days. Having just come away from an experience where I got to bask in gooey feelings of righteousness and honesty, do I then turn around and pocket $20 that doesn't belong to me? Or do I simply shrug my shoulders and decide this is my reward for being such a damned fine person? What would you do? Two contrasting stories come to mind. One is the story of Jesus being tempted by Satan in Matthew 4:1-11. The other is one of my favourite short stories by Mark Twain: The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut . Tomorrow: the conclusion January 09 The green, green grass of homeSingle working parents of small children, I salute you. I am only on my second work day of this stretch of single-parenting, and I already feel beaten. For the second day in a row, I went into work 40 minutes late, after being up until 1 in the morning trying to prepare for the day, hoping it would get off to a smooth start, which it didn't.
I decided this morning that I just wasn't going to get stressed out about being late. I'll simply keep track of the time I owe my employer, and when Michael gets back, I'll go in to work and make up the time on a Monday that I usually stay home. When I rush around, I tend to get into accidents, which slows me down, having to clean up the mess I wouldn't have made if I'd just been slower in the first place.
The main problem these last two mornings is that Jade has been waking up in the night or early in the morning, and by the time she goes back to sleep, it's the time we're both supposed to be getting up, but I'm exhausted. Her routine has been off since our Christmas holidays started (so many parties!) but I was hoping it would be back to normal by now. She's tending to sleep in and isn't napping as well in the afternoons. If it weren't for work and daycare, I'd be happy to sleep in and have shorter naps (or no nap) later in the day, especially with the short sunlight hours we have now. But the necessity of getting to work on time and of trying to maintain a routine similar to what they do at daycare makes this a non-option.
At times like these, I dream about being a stay-at-home mom. Now that Jade is old enough to entertain herself for good long stretches, I'm often actually able to get things done on the days I stay at home, so I imagine that I might actually be able to stay on top of the dishwashing, toilet-scrubbing, laundering, paper filing, dusting, mopping, tidying, and many other ings that are currently neglected until absolutely necessary. Perhaps I'm just dreaming, but even though I know being a SAHM is not a picnic, I feel like I'd be more in control of my house, at least. Yes, I know there are disadvantages to being a SAHM. Heather down the street definitely feels some isolation, which I also sometimes felt when I was home with Jade in her first year. And before Jade's time, I had some strong concerns about what multiple years of unemployment would do to my employability post-kids.
There are also lots of good reasons for me to be working right now: financial security, health benefits, employment insurance when I go on maternity leave (whenever that might be), adult interaction. And Jade has been thriving at daycare. She's clearly a little extravert and loves being with the kids and caregivers there. She also does things that I never would have attempted with her at her age (like crafts with scissors and glue and sparkles) and is learning all sorts of great things. Besides that, a recent study showed that kids who attend daycares end up having fewer inflammatory diseases such as asthma because of the excellent immunilogical effects of being exposed to lots of germy kids.
Anyway, the truth is that except for when Michael goes away, our current arrangement is working out okay, if you ignore the untidiness of our home. One thing I can tell you, if I were ever a single working parent on a full-time basis, I would not have a dog; having to get him out for an hour's walk on workdays is one of the single biggest stressors I have.
Yesterday I decided to try fitting the walk in after work and before dinner; I do like the idea of Jade getting some outside time every day, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I got dinner mostly done in the Crock Pot so that it would be ready more or less on time. By the time I got Jade changed into her warm outside clothes, it was later than I'd hoped, so I decided to use Michael's strategy of sledding down the bobsled run 2 or 3 times and giving Nanuq his exercise that way.
The run was good because it had been roughed-up by snowmachines, so it wasn't too fast for me to control... until we got to the last bit of the hill, which we entered on a slant because of the curve in the path. We built up a lot more speed than I expected and started UP the hill on the other side. We ended up stopping abruptly by hitting a tree. *sigh* It was the same hill I injured myself on on Boxing Day, although it was a different tree. I was terrified because Jade was, of course, in front of me, and not really held back by anything because I had my arms out in an attempt to steer. She did bounce forward and bump her head on the tree, not too hard, thank God. She stopped crying within 2 minutes and didn't even have a bruise. But you can bet I won't be trying that again.
So in the end, Nanuq didn't get much of a walk yesterday. I guess I'll have to revert to begging others to take him out and/or begging poeple to come over to the house for an hour after Jade is in bed so that I can walk him.
The thing that really gets my goat is that Michael can't possibly understand how much work this is. I mean, he knows, but he doesn't KNOW. You know? Even if I went away for 2 weeks, he has a lot more flexibility in his day than I have. And he isn't nearly as reluctant as I am to ask people for help. For some reason, that just really bugs me. I suppose I'm just looking through the fence and thinking that THAT grass really does look greener. January 08 Blogging woes: looking for a new blogging homeI started blogging at Live Spaces in April of 2005. There wasn't a lot of thought that went into the choice of blogging platform. I'd just discovered blogs and my main source of information was my sister's blog, which she had started on Live Spaces (although it was called MSN Spaces back then, I think). I'd been reading her blog for a few months and loved that I could finally keep abreast of what was going on in her life - she was so busy, we rarely talked on the phone. I thought some of my family and friends might like it if I did the same thing. There are a couple of good things about Live Spaces. It's very easy to upload pictures to create online photo albums, for one. It's pretty much idiot-proof easy to start. You can do a little bit of customization with the theme and drag-and-drop built-in widgets around. But I don't know anyone who is seriously blogging who uses Live Spaces now. Most people want more flexibility to customize the look of their site. Besides, despite my visitor's account, people who come here have a heck of a time leaving comments, even when they do have an MSN Passport. If they use Firefox, there are all sorts of issues (which is just dirty pool, in my humble opinion). Since for me blogging has grown from a way to keep family and friends in the loop into being part of a larger community, I feel I've really outgrown Live Spaces. It's been a while that I've been thinking of switching to another blogging platform, but which one? I already have a blog on Blogger, and since I'm such a Google groupie I use Gmail and the Google RSS Reader and such, so it would be easy to go there. But WordPress seems to have some great things going for it, too, particularly seeming to be friendlier to visitors than Blogger. And if I eventually decide to get really serious, I can decide to find a host and take total control over how the thing looks instead of using a template someone else designed. However, I've started a test blog with WordPress and I'm having some issues with formatting the text- the system keeps deleting my line breaks so that all my paragraphs are mashed together. I hate that! Since the WordPress Support Desk is closed for the week, I'm left to wonder whether the advantages are worth the headache. So, bloggy people, what have you to say on the subject? If you want to leave a comment and haven't got a passport, try using IE and sign in as fawnsguest using the password 99Nanuq. Or you can reach me by email by mashing my first and last names together (my last name is Fritzen) and adding gmail (*dot*) com. At least if you're reading this on Facebook it's easy to leave a comment. Whew, at least something is easy. January 05 Cloudy skies at nightI took Nanuq out for his daily walk last night while Michael put Jade to bed for the last time for at least two weeks (he left for the NWT this morning). I set out around 7:30 and it was very light outside. Not as light as it would be in the middle of the summer, but I had no trouble seeing the trails and could see Nanuq the whole time, too. It was amazing the difference between last night and my walk with him on Wednesday night. Wednesday night was clear and cold and the stars sparkled in the sky; but I couldn't see much down on the ground. In fact, I actually took the wrong trail at one point and ended up going a different route than I had intended. And Nanuq and the neighbour's dog, Kodiak, kept getting lost in the shadows.
So what was the difference last night? Last night, the sky was overcast.
It's a strange truth that in the middle of winter in Whitehorse, it's brighter out at night if it's cloudy than if it's clear. The light from the city reflects of the low clouds and off the snow, too, so that the outdoors is lit up to twilight brightness. I suppose I ought to lament the effects of light pollution, and I admit that a starry sky is much more romantic, but it made my walk last night much easier than Wednesday's. I was so giddy from being out with Nanuq in the orange light that I decided to roll down one of the tobogganing hills. Given my propensity for running into trees, that's one bit of childishness I definitely wouldn't have attempted in the inky darkness of perfectly starry night.
If you have any unusual observations or random thoughts about weather, Rebecca is collecting posts about that topic this month. Surf on over to check out weather in other parts of blogland, and if you want to play along, just send her the link. January 04 Jade at 23 monthsThere is less than a month left to go before Jade turns 2, so it must be time for an update.
 Jade on Christmas morning; some friends are loaning us this old rocking horse for a while!
Mama's little helper
I'm continually astonished by the things Jade can do and understand. The crafts she brings home from daycare are often far more sophisticated than I would've thought one could do with a 2-year-old. This year, Jade helped me to decorate the tree. She put some of the ornaments on the tree herself (including one she made herself at daycare) but the best part was putting the old-fashioned tin "icicles" on. Her little hands can actually fit into the tube in which they are stored, and she handed them to me one by one so that I could hang them on the tree. Sometimes they got bent when she was taking them out of the tube, and she would exclaim "Uh oh! Uh oh! Uh oh!" and give them to me to fix. She was just as helpful when we took the tree down on Sunday. I took the icicles off and put them on the floor in bunches and she picked them up one by one and put them back into the tubes.  Jade helps Michael fix the beater brush on the vacuum
Sing, Sing, Sing
Jade has always loved music, and she's taken to singing on her own now. One day when we were driving home she was singing something unintelligble to me, and gesturing and I was sure she was showing us something she'd learned at daycare. When I asked her care-giver Michelle about it next day, I found out that she had been singing "Skinny-ma-rink". On Tuesday, Jade was doing the Sandra Boynton "Pajama Time!" thing in the car. I guess it's not exactly a song, but it sort of is. The last page goes like this:
IT'S PAJAMA TIME!
(Hush, hush) It's Pajama Time! (Hush, hush) it's pajama time (shhhhhh) Good Night Sleep Tight Jade LOVES this book and especially loves the last page. I was driving along the Yukon River and she was saying "Hush, hush" (pause) "Hush, hush" (pause) "shhhhh".
Yesterday Michael witnessed her doing a fair rendition of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". Do I even have to tell you how my heart squeezes when I hear her making music?
 Learning to play Uncle Tim's ukelele
Books, books, books
Speaking of books, Jade is obsessed with books right now. If it were up to Jade, we could spend entire mornings doing nothing but reading one book after another, and many of them more than once! Michael and I are both please to be raising a bookworm, although it can get a bit tedious when there are other things to get done. Michael had a struggle getting Jade to go outside for some fresh air last night, although she loves being outside. She just wanted him to sit and read to her, and she wanted to point out the animals and show us everything she knows. Also, I think she was exercising her 2-year-old right to use the word "no" emphatically at every possible occasion. Jade's current favourite is "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do You See?" by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carle. She knows what animal is coming up on the next page before we turn it and particularly loves the last page where all the animals are recapped and she can point them out to us one by one. She's also starting to learn colours now.
 The family on Christmas morning
Teeth
Jade's last incisor is finally in, and her canines are starting to come out. We try to remember to brush them every night now, but we do occasionally slip up. It's gotten more difficult, though; she used to enjoy tooth-brushing, but now she's decided she doesn't want to do it. Fortunately, the daycare does tooth-brushing after snack each morning, so at least someone else is also looking out for her dental health three days a week.  Chatterbox
Jade talks more and more each day and often parrots us. Sometimes she spouts nonsense in a steady stream, but she's using more and more two and three word sentences, and even uses the occasional "please" without prompting. I can no longer keep track of the new words she's learned, but some of my favourites are: "the end" at the end of every book, "there you go" (actually "dere go!") whenever she hands us something or puts something away in its place (which she loves to do), "lights" (or, as she says it "lieeees") which isn't really a new word, but which became much-used over the Christmas holiday. "Dee Dee" is Jade's name for herself - again not something entirely new, but it just recently occurred to me to tell people that's what she means. In case you're wondering, it's because we usually call her "Jade Jade". Jade really shocked me on Christmas morning when she opened up a toy a neighbour had brought for her, pointed at it and said, "Elmo!" We've never had an Elmo at home, so this was clearly something she picked up at daycare. It made me wonder what other kid-culture characters she knows that maybe I don't even know. She might be getting cooler than me already.
 Jade's first time on her bob-skates (Christmas gift from Norris and Charmaine)
(Thanks to Tim for all the pictures except the vacuuming one, which Michael took.)
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