Lucy, fresh from a free BBQ at our local legion with my parents. She came home covered in ketchup (what a surprise, being my daughter), carrying Canadian flags for Eric and I, and Canada stickers on her red shoes.

When I put her down for nap, she spent a good 45 minutes in her crib singing various renditions of Oh Canada.

The sporadic fireworks popping off all day mean poor Spencer Dog is a wreck. For the past six months or so, he’s become terrified of them and thunderstorms. So the past few weeks of incessant afternoon showers, and the last few long weekends he’s spent either stuffed between the toilet and the wall in our downstairs bathroom (WTF? Small space = comfort?), hiding behind the furnace in the basement, on my feet under the computer, or in a closet. He shakes and pants and his eyes bug out of his head. We feel so bad for him.

Eric and I have spent the day cleaning and packing and doing laundry in prep for the cottage. It’s so much work to go, but so worth it once we get there.

Posts will be light for the rest of the week, as Internet access is almost non-existent (translation: it depends on if we can hijack borrow a nearby wireless signal) — but tune in for the obscene popcorn recipe and the top 10 things kids stick up their noses.

Jen’s given birth to a healthy baby girl!

Avery Quinn was born at 10:40 a.m., weighing 8 lbs., 15 oz.

The girls are doing great, big sister Eirinn is tickled, and Jen’s hubby sounds tired but happy.

That was just seven hours of labour — and Jen did it again without an epidural.

Wow. Congrats to the O’ Donnell’s!

For those of you following along, Jen’s in labour!

Her water broke at 3:40 a.m. today, according to an email she sent me at 5:30. And from her husband at just before 8, she was at the hospital with healthy (3 minutes apart) contractions.

Hopefully I’ll have more news and photos later on today…

This weekend, Lucy discovered dolls. Specifically, she zoned in on my beloved Cabbage Patch Kid, Alexabell.

I can’t explain how surreal it was to spend half an hour sitting in my daughter’s room, my favourite childhood CPK clothes strewn around us, putting outfits on my once-favourite doll. It was a time warp, one that still leaves me sort of disjointed. I’m so thankful to my parents for saving my Kids, even if they were stored naked in a garbage bag for almost 20 years.

Lucy calls Alexabell — an admittedly hard word for a 2.5-year-old — Alexabot. Which just cracks Eric and I up, as it sounds like some sort of cyerborg/robot. We keep waiting for her to stand up and walk towards us with her arms swinging stiffly by her sides, mouth opening and closing like a nutcracker.

We spent another half hour Sunday putting every single “pretty” into Alexabell’s hair. She looked like a pimped-out Amish girl, what with her hair bling and prim dress.

Saturday I scored a Little Tikes stroller at a garage sale up the street for just 50 cents (!), and Sunday we took Alexabell for a walk. We’re thinking of nominating Lucy for Canada’s Worst Driver: Toddler Edition, as the child cannot walk in a straight line while pushing. While she was heart-attack-inducing cute with her ponytail and dress and light-up shoes and plastic beads and pure glee at her new toys, holymother was it tiring going 3 ft.-stuckonthegrass-3 ft.-stuckonthegrass, repeat alll the way down the sidewalk.

Which is why the weekend ended like this, with Eric earning yet another fatherhood stripe.

Last Wednesday I just got home from seeing Carl when the phone rang.

It was my doctor’s office. They were insistent to see me the next day. About my ultrasound, the receptionist said. But it wasn’t anything to worry about, the receptionist said. But yes, I had to come in, even though I was officially transferring to the doctor/obstetrician who will deliver this baby and had an appointment with her the very next day, the receptionist said.

That phone call broke me. I lost it. The stress of work, Eric’s continuing job search, other drama, pregnancy — all of it converged with that phone call. Eric was at his brother’s in Toronto, but came flying home (as fast as one can up the Don Valley Parking Lot Parkway during rush hour) when I called him practically incoherent and sobbing.

(I called my boss and negotiated a break for a few days. Mom’s night out that evening helped immensely. A four-day hiatus from the computer and various fun-ness with Eric and Lucy meant this morning I woke nearly normal and less stressed. Thankfully.)

The short version of Thursday’s appointment was this: My prenatal testing showed a higher-than-normal ratio for my age for Down syndrome; mine was for a woman 34, not 29. Although the overall results pointed conclusively to negative, my cautious doctor didn’t like the number — so this afternoon, we went to the Oshawa hospital for a Level 2 ultrasound to get confirmation that everything is, indeed, all good.

And it is.

And I was completely proven wrong and utterly shocked to learn that Lucy is going to have a little sister.

…she’s pushing inanimate objects in the swing.

• Lucy has an awful diaper rash. Like she’s crying out in pain when we try to wipe her. Poor thing. An early morning poop on a sleep-in day combined with all this heat and humidity created a bad environment. Luckily she’s doing better this morning, and we sent her to Julia’s with some zinc cream.
• Let us all send Jen O. some sympathy as she battles a belly measuring PAST her due date, and that time known as “None of my Clothes Fit the Belly Anymore,” also known as, “Why Can’t I Just Come to Work Nekkid?”
• Know what $213.07 will buy you at the vet’s office? An exam, thermometer up the (not mine, thankgoodness) butt, needle, heartworm treatment and every inch of your clothing covered in dog fur from one freaked-out, shaking Spencer Dog. I don’t blame him: The last time he was there, he earned the knickname The Baconator, came home comically stoned, and now all the vets know him as That Dog
• Driving home from the vet’s, Eric said the words French fries. Do you want to know what we had for lunch today? Peanut butter on toast, marble cheese, spicy oven French fries, fruit, and maple cookies. Pregnant women don’t joke about food. Ever. (upcoming story about this tomorrow…)
• Speaking of food, for dinner tonight we’re having pulled bbq chicken sandwiches with tangy cheese (ok, ok, it’s Cheez Whiz) on onion buns, with tomato and cucumber salad that includes herbed feta cheese and Greek dressing. I may have been thinking of this all day. Well, since the French fries, anyways…
  
• We were disappointed — but not terribly surprised — when our local Farmer’s Market was not yet open this Sunday, even though it’s opening is labeled as June. I can’t wait until we can walk over and get local produce again. Is anyone else counting down until strawberry season kicks in? Don’t forget you can find local retailers and markets on the Durham Farm Fresh website
• Do you know what third-party administrators do? Four interviews later, and I still don’t. Yargh. Also: help.
• Look! It’s my Golden Girls!
• Best sentence via email today: “Drunk monkeys randomly typing at a keyboard would require less editing.”

From the time Lucy was three months old, she’s been out in the garden with me.

We’d strap her in her bouncy seat, and stuff abandon place her gently under a tree or in the shade, and chat to her as I dug and planted and weeded and Eric did man-chores such as mowing, edging and mulching.

The early influence — combined with similar experiences in my parents’ beautiful gardens — means Lucy now loves dirt and flowers and stomping around in her rubber boots. Any time we read a book that features any sort of growing, she says, “Cee-Cee help Mama in the garden!”

I recently spent a morning filling our planters at the front of the house, and Lucy was practically exploding with excitement to help. Wearing a pair of my garden gloves, she carried plants, dumped soil and poured water, and was quite proud of herself when we nestled them on the porch.

I hope she continues to love gardening as she gets older, that it’s not just a passing adoration because her mummy likes doing it. With that in mind, I’m enjoying every second we dig around in the dirt together.

All of you, for the most part, have at least one child. Some, I know, have more, or know they want more, or are pregnant with subsequent kids.

So I’m really curious to know — being pregnant with our second, and last, child — how will you, or did you, decide the age spacing of your children?

We always knew Lucy would be at least 2 before we’d want to be pregnant again. “At least” turned out to be “within days of her second birthday,” but I am loving how it turned out. At 27 months, Lucy is just adorable right now. She’s still controllable, she’s a cute chatterbox, she listens and plays make believe and generally is completely edible. Lately I’ve been saying if I wasn’t already pregnant, I’d want to be.

I’m also loving the seasons of this pregnancy: I went through the real crappy times when it was still cold out, and am now in the energized second trimester in late spring/early summer when I can still easily run after Lucy and garden and paint and travel in the nice weather. This *should* also play out well with transitioning Lucy into a big girl bed, and potty training her this summer.

I also needed to make sure that life could — and would — return to some semblance of normalcy, even if it is a “new normal.” You know, that our evenings would once again be free (Lucy now goes to bed around 7:30 p.m., and sleeps until 7 a.m.), that we could do stuff with and without her, that my sense of self wasn’t lost (just altered) and that the world really does continue to exist and function after kids.

Finally, from a completely selfish, body perspective, I got tired of being in limbo: Knowing that I’d be pregnant and breastfeeding again, that my body would change again, that my boobs would change again. I felt like I couldn’t invest in nice clothes or bras knowing that my body wasn’t done morphing. And working out, in some respects, began to feel a little pointless knowing what was (hopefully) right around the corner.

But I think even if you aren’t able to plan your pregnancies — either they’re surprises or take longer than expected — or you adopt or whatever, whatever the age spacing turns out to be is the right one for your family.

Discuss.

Remember back in March we found out that Julia is closing up for the summer again?

After weeks of thinking and hmm-ing, we decided to stick with her. As one of the commenters, my friend Angie, said, there is always going to be something with any childcare provider you have. And because I have a flexible schedule, work from home and we’re surrounded by great and generous family, we knew we could deal with her closures. It’ll be annoying, but it’s a sacrifice we’re willing to make. On top of that, we just like and trust Julia too much, and want the Parasite2 to go there, too.

Plus, Julia said she’d be very upset to lose Lucy, who she described as a “delight” and a “perfect fit” into her life and roster of kids. Keep in mind the woman has a lengthy waiting list, so it’s not like she couldn’t easily find a replacement…

With that decision made, we turned to the resulting problem of finding someone to look after Lucy for my three work days a week, for the eight weeks of the summer.

I knew I could stretch my 20 hours over three full days, instead of 2.5 like I have been the past months. With this in mind, I figured I could make do with a teenager looking after Lucy from 8 a.m.-noon — meaning be out of the house at the park or down in the basement with the door closed — then work through her nap. If necessary, I could make up any hours on Thursdays, when my Lucy has her day with my Mom.

One lead — a friend of the family of one of Lucy’s daycare buddies — fell through after a promising start. But everything in life happens for a reason, and losing Rebecca had to happen or we wouldn’t have found Shelby.

Shelby’s 13 and lives across the road. She’s a beautiful, friendly girl with olive skin and brown hair who loves soccer. I approached her dad during on of his daily runs, and a few phone calls later, we secured ourselves not only a summer caregiver, but an eager babysitter for any evening out — who still has five years of school left, and lots of time to be wanting to pick up extra cash.

Jackpot.

We didn’t realize just how lucky we were — and great Shelby is — until this Tuesday, when she came over to meet us a bit more and spend some time with Lucy. My daughter took to this girl like no other stranger or even family member. Lucy chatted her ear off right away, played toys, was totally fine when we left them alone, and even gave her a hug when she left.

Good luck? Karma? Older — but not too older — girl idolhood?

I’m not going to question the caregiver gods who have sprinkled their magic dust on us once again. I’m just making silent prayers, blowing kisses in the wind, and am really damn thankful.

p.s. — thanks to all of you who left comments with suggestions and encouragement on that last post. It really means a lot!