I'm the ruler of your world she says without any words.  I control your heart and am the soul source of all your worries.  I feed you joy and motivate your days.  I am your light. 

"Love is the one who masters all things;

I am mastered totally by love."

                              Rumi

Figs

Figs my love, you're on the same timeline your big sister was.  Almost to the day.  It allows me to look back at my blog posts from 2009 and compare today with yesterday.  Knowing the level of joy you're capable of bringing to us almost makes the waiting harder.  I'm impatient with the work my body is going through as you make your way to us.  I just want you here safe and sound already. 

The end of a work day

This is my favorite part of my day.  After work I make my way across town and practically skip into the daycare center looking for my baby girl.  Every day I'm able to spot her through a door window and for a few moments enjoy watching her play.  She plays with all her heart.  She is focused and determined yet easygoing and happy.  That's how the providers will describe her too.  But as soon as she sees me her feet start in motion in my direction.  There is a wonderful hug and a moment of eye contact that repairs any feelings of tiredness I might have.  She always has a few arm and hand gestures for me as she provides me with a few words, I presume about her day.  She is becoming an animated talker.  I look forward to understanding her words sometime very soon.  We then put her jacket on together, I grab her bag and we start our journey to the car for our two minute commute home.  She waves good bye to her friends and heads down the hall to the doors where she pushes the automatic door opening buttons.  I thank and praise her for her helpfulness.  Then I ask her if she can point to her car... which she now can.  She roams around and is playful before we finally head home.  At which point she completely unravels, needs food, a bath, a song from the backyardigans, a bottle, a cuddle and her bed.

A gift beyond

Too kind.  Have you ever received a gift from someone special that leaves you... lost for words.  Our recent holiday to Cape Cod was turned around by Hurricane Irene.  Scratching our heads at home we wondered what to do with our precious time together away from work.  Then we got a call from friends.  Friends who wanted to know we'd done the right thing and turned around and come home.  Friends who thought we might like to use their cottage in place of our cancelled trip.  Friends who are thoughtful beyond what your heart could imagine. 

Rest in Peace Darin

It comes in waves.  Reminders that life is short.  Reminders to love now not tomorrow.  To cherish.  Or maybe it’s that life is soo good right now that I wonder how it can possibly hold together.  I fight my fears with the belief that most of us live into our eighties and beyond.  More importantly I fight my fears by living well.  To my best.  I live gently.  I’m easy with myself.  It’s a learned way.  A purposeful effort and it helps.  I cherish the good times, work hard when it’s time to work, and let go what can be let go.  It’s a practise.  A discipline.  One that renews every morning, forgiving yesterday and focusing on today.  It allows me to ride the waves, when they come, that remind me that life is short.

You were a good good man Darin.  I knew that for sure.

The moments you remember... forever!

We're heading to Cape Cod for vacation this year.  Jay and I are tense as we try to get our desk clear for a two week period away.  It's going be heavenly.  Two whole weeks of family time.  The coveted family time.  I remember driving the east coast line through the upper states when I was a teen.  I'd been invited to join a family trip of a dear friend of mine.  It holds some of my favourite memories.  It was exciting to join another family on their trip.  I knew I was lucky to be going with them.  We bought our first snowboards together on that trip.  Well... they bought it for me and I got my first job when I got home in order to pay for it.  The Burton Cruize!  Love love love...  That's another blog entry unto itself.  But the trip was full of moments like that.  And this... The mom was watching out the window and taking in the beauty of the river along the drive.  "Go back Don... Go back" she said.  Down to the river edge we went in our bathing suits... into the fridgid cold water and then... we floated.  We floated for what seemed like forever.  Down the river.  Round the bend and on.  Bob bob bobalong the river we went on our backs.  Our eyes squinting from the sun above and our ears listening to the water flow beneath.  Memories.  What wonderful memories.  And the learning that comes from moments like this.  I sit healthy in my beige cubicle because of moments like this.

The past present and future

Blogs are interesting aren't they.  You share.  You share this about that and as you do you think about not only who is reading but when might they read it.  I suspect I might read some of these entrees years from now.  I suspect my daughter might.  I wish my grandfather had left a blog.  I've never met him but for some reason feel a connection to him.  I've seen a little cabin on a lake he used to escape to and go fishing.  I've seen the blue spruce he planted in front of what was a new home to him and his family... and yesterday at lunch I walked to and stood in front of the home he lived in before that new home was built.  I stood and looked.  I looked at the brick and the stone base and big beautiful old tree in the front yard.  I stood on the front step and looked out onto the street.  I walked to the street corner and imagined my mom as a little girl looking across the street she wasn't aloud to cross alone.  I can't quit express what was going on... I just took it in.  Simply took it in and tried to imagine.  I think my great grandparents had been with them for a short time in that house too.  I have a concept of them also.  I wish I could know them more.  I've driven slowly by their old home in old Ottawa.  I was driving in the procession of cars on our way to burry their youngest daughter.  She was the last of that family to leave us.  The closing of an era.  I treasure the past.  I've always been one to do that.  I absorb it and keep it with me.  I go to these places and of course they're not there.  But in way... they are... or are they just with me...  I took a second pause when I first considered buying the home I'm in now... because there was a blue spruce on the front lawn. 

The things you can't capture

I capture so many of your little moments, my love.  I click and record and post and paste and print and hang.  You fill me up with a level of joy I've never felt before.  But this morning you out did yourself and as you did I realised there was no way to capture it or the sheer delight I felt from watching you.  Your Dada and I had made our way halfway up the basement stairs after a leisurely Saturday morning of play in your playroom.  We'd stopped halfway because we know how much you enjoy hanging upside down while seeing yourself in the big mirror that is there.  Just when I was sure you were going to make yourself sick with dizziness you toddled up the remaining step to the landing to the front hall.  With Dada and I perched on the top step discussing our pending family vacation you toddled over and stood before us.  Da! you said with outstretched hands in the form of a question.  Yes my love? I asked with a smile.  Da! you said and with that you crouch down very slowly and gently leaned your forehead towards my mouth stealing a kiss.  You stood with satisfaction and looked at your Dada... and did the same to him.  Again, back and forth you collected kiss after kiss.  And... I love you so.  I just couldn't love you more.

Hands Mine and Yours

Did you ever look at your grandmothers hands?  I mean really look at them and take them in.  Did you touch the tops of them and run your finger over all the little scars from years in the kitchen, and the rough spots from gardening and cleaning, and the dark spots from years in the sun?  The weather of life lived and loved.  Do you remember that moment, way back when, she touched the top of your hand and had a good look at it, remembering when her own looked so supple, so white so new.  I remember that moment.  For some reason it sunk into me and stuck with me and comes back from time to time.  I noticed today, my hands, they're almost halfway there.  Halfway through life and showing some of those little scars and rough spots and dark spots.  I love them.  I love them because they make me feel close to my grandmother.  They remind me of her.  They bring forward in me my love of life and how beautiful living is.  The new little hands in my life make me brim with love and joy.  Love for my grandmother and love for my mother and myself and my daughter.  Take a look at your hands.  I bet you'll see more then your own life in them. 

Summer is coming!

I can't wait my love, because summer is coming, and you'll get to feel the world around you more then you can do right now.  You'll get to run in the grass and the sand and sprinkler and the beach and the splash pad.  You'll get to feel the warmth of the sun and really love it for all it's glory.  You'll get to meet a clown I'm sure and get to hold your first balloon and get to taste your first taste of your mothers favourite taste... cotton candy.  Summer is coming, summer is coming.  It's leaving our friends in Australia and coming to us.

My little love, how happy you are and smarter you are getting.  You clap with joy and squeal with delight and splash with enthusiasm and explore with determination. You teach me so much, every single day I learn.  I wonder and wonder what I ever did before there was you.  I really really wonder.

It's a new day!

I'm trying to look on the bright side.  Toria is starting to nap more regularly, longer, and better yet is doing so in her crib.  My wonderful husband (the one who makes my world go around as it should) takes Toria in the morning while I sleep in.  He feeds her breakfast, plays with her and even dresses her sometimes.  He then places her in bed beside me before leaving for work at 8.  Toria feeds and falls asleep.  Often we'll wake together around 10.  But... sometimes I wake before her and head downstairs to have breakfast and catch up on world events and facebook updates.  It's me time and I love it.  It lasts until she wakes, realises I've left her and cries for my return, at which point I'm so excited to see her again since I haven't really seen her since bedtime.  From there we start our day.  I've known this beautiful routine would be coming to an end as I watch her get closer and closer to independent mobility.

Today is a new day... because today when I responded to her cry I found her on the floor.  With my heart in my throat I picked her up for our morning cuddle.  I watched closely for any signs of a bump or worse.  She didn't keep me in suspense... she smiled and cooed and reached around the air as if to tell me she was a.o.k. and ready for our day.  Tomorrows routine... will be slightly different.

Hats!

OK mommy!  I'll play the hat game with you!  How do you play?

Really?  But I can't see!

Which means I might fall over!

Good thing for you I'm a good sport!

Off mommy!

Oh... I see.  You put them on...

and I take them off!

On

Off

On

tricky

off

On

Off

I'm not sure I like this game any more

You're not listening to me!

What hat? 

You mean you got another one on me when I wasn't looking?

Off mommy!  Off!

Some odds and ends

Toria waiting at the Victoria BC airport for her dad to arrive after being without him for three weeks. 

I don't think we own a baby had without some kind of pom poms or ears on it.

Toria drenched in sunbeams while on a dog walk through the woods.

I'm not sure what this was about... but it was sure cute.

Her first introduction to the Pacific ocean. 

Her first word... Dada.  Said often when he' around. 

Christmas morning with her new teddy bear in his bunny ear hoody.

Her first taste of food.  It's not a silver spoon... it will have to do.

Yummy dragon fly

A little cross country skiing for mommy's soul!

Here is Toria and Ivy in the Chariot at the start of our first ski.  It was a beautiful day and nap time was fast approaching.

Here is Nicole with Christopher in the single Chariot.  Nicole inspired me to get a move on and find a Chariot.  It might have been a plan that fell by the wayside otherwise.

Quickly into our trip, in the fresh air and with full bellies, the girls fell fast asleep into their afternoon nap.

When it was all done we had happy refreshed mommies and happy refreshed babies.