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.

• 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.”

Our week goes like this:

• Monday-Wednesday, Lucy is at Julia’s (our home daycare provider) from 8-4:30-ish
• Thursday, Lucy is at my Mom and Dad’s
• Friday she is home with me (and, currently, Eric)

By the time mid-morning Thursday comes — especially since I’ve been out Wednesday night with the girls and only see Lucy for a few hours — I’m really missing my daughter. I’m aching for her to arrive home from her Nana’s, and for Friday morning to come so we can start our day.

Except Thursday nights are often…difficult. Lucy is almost always riled up, high on grandparent love and attention and treats, and also excited to be reunited with us. So she usually comes back to Chez McDougall-Foster blazing around like she’s got a fire cracker up her arse, running and yelling and squealing and laughing and not listening.

I’ve dubbed this time Thursday Night Toddler Terror.

Did I mention this is almost always around 7-ish? The time that we’re normally getting her ready for bed? Hahahaaaaa, *sob*

I don’t for a milisecond blame my parents, nor would I ever want to change the Thursday arrangement. All three of them adore their day together, look forward to it all week, and are quite literally squirming in anticipation by Wednesday evening. (Me, too, ’cause Thursday is my not-working-at-the-paying-job day where I work on the site, get caught up on email, do housewifey things and garden and shop and sometimes meet friends for lunch.)

Plus, it’s Grandparent Right #1 to be able to hype up a child, then leave. After the trials and tribulations of raising your own children and setting them free on the planet to explore and grow and love and breed, damn right you should get to spoil your grandchildren and not have to suffer any of the resulting meltdowns (see TNTT, above).

Do you hear the snorts and cackling? Those are our parents, being smug.

So Thursday comes, and I’m so excited to see my Goose, and we manically laugh and giggle and kiss and nuzzle, and then after 10 minutes of her rampage through the house, I count down the seconds and nighttime tasks until I can literally throw her in her crib and collapse on the couch, gasping for air.

And then Friday morning comes and she is sane once more, divulged of the grandparent-induced high, and we have a fabulous day.

Eric’s Mom took this photo when we were visiting her in early May. Eric and I were both so startled when we saw it, because we can totally glimpse what Lucy is going to look like grown up. Her face is turned up, so what little baby fat remaining at just over 2 years is pulled away, and just her natural features remain.

It’s eerie to see. And beautiful, too, in our rose-coloured parental glasses. It also makes me a little sad — I’m so not ready for grown up, not-as-dependent Lucy. As much as I’ve been waiting for these talking, walking years of exploration and interaction, let’s just sloowwww down a bit, hmmm?

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.

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!

Lucy came home from daycare yesterday with an ouchie: A blister on the inside of her pointer finger.

She burst in the door after Eric picked her up, and immediately shoved her hand in my face. “Lucy has ouchie Mummy kiss it better,” she demanded.

(Do you do a lot of ouchie kissing? It’s the most powerful tool in my arsenal of Mom Skilz, I think. It can stop a tantrum and tears and full-on meltdown.)

Our first thought was that Julia was running some sort of child labour camp guised as a home daycare, because how does a toddler come home with a blister unless she was swinging a pick axe or shoveling dirt all day? It wasn’t until we dropped Lucy off today (where in a deja vu scene, Lucy burst in my parents’ door, shoved her finger in her Nana’s face, said “Lucy has an ouchie Mummy kiss it better?” before swinging her fist around to my mouth) and my Mom’s face went pale.

Turns out Lucy’d gotten too close to the stove last week and burned her finger when she and Nana were baking Grandpa a cake (with sprinkles). It happened quick, was fixed with cold water and kisses, and my Mom thought nothing more of it.

In any case, The Ouchie is a very big deal at Chez McDougall-Foster. The reason we didn’t know about it for a week is because it wasn’t bothering Lucy until yesterday when it popped at Julia’s. So now it’s sore and stings.

So Lucy whined about it during her after-daycare movie. Before dinner. During dinner when she tried to hold her fork. We promised we’d make it feel better with “special cream” (polysporin) and a band-aid.

Now she proudly shows the band-aid (”Cee-Cee’s ban-ay”) to everyone. This morning I heard her talking to a towel we have laid out in her big girl room (we’re painting), showing it to the fabric doggies and asking them to kiss “Cee-Cee’s ouchie gots at Ju-Ju’s house” better. Spencer’s seen the band-aid. Shelby, the girl across the road, has seen the ouchie AND the band-aid. When she came home this evening we immediately saw it was a NEW band-aid that Nana put on.

Have you been within 10 kms of our house? THEN YOU’VE SEEN THE OUCHIE AND THE BAND-AID.

It’s actually heart-melting adorable how concerned and interested and fixated Lucy is. It’s sure to…

Uh-oh. Gotta run. Lucy, over the monitor, has declared a state of emergency because “THE BAN-AY FELLED OFF.”

The saga continues…

…the creepy Potato family comes out to play.

We’re heading to Eric’s Mom’s tomorrow morning for a over-due visit, and a much-needed hiatus from home before we start Job Hunt Spring Edition 2008 on Monday.

Lucy is excited to go to Gramie’s house, where she promises to give her big hugs and kisses.

I’ve already called sleep-in rights for Sunday (Eric, over my shoulder: “No you’re not!”), something my husband can hardly refuse considering it’s Mother’s Day (“Oh. Right. Grrr.”).

Eric and Lucy came home from their forced house vacancy during Jen’s shower last weekend with a mysterious rectangular box stuffed inside a reusable shopping bag. I am intruiged. And Lucy came home from daycare Wednesday with a hand painted pot, which I absolutely adore. It’s so true that when you become a mom, the best gifts are those created by your children’s own hands.

If it’s true that Mother’s Day gets harder when you get married (especially when said mothers are in different cities, hours away), it becomes even harder still when you become a mother yourself — torn between wanting to spend time with and honour your own precious parent on this special day, and wanting to be pampered and loved by your own new family.

How do all of you handle this? Split the day between everyone? Take turns each year? I wonder how my own mother and mother-in-law handled this when they became parents?

I think next year, having a toddler and chubby parasite baby — providing the only two grandchildren for each mom, so far — will have earned me the right to my first sleep-in at home and breakfast in bed.

I hope you all have a great weekend and wonderful Mother’s Day with your families — no matter how or with whom you celebrate it!

You know how moms have these…sayings? Like, “Don’t cross your eyes or your face will stay that way!” or “Use your INSIDE voice!” or “If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you, too?”

I have one I use all the time, usually aimed at Eric, or his brother, Marky, or his brother’s wife, Jenni, when they are rough-housing with Lucy: “Don’t shake her around so much, or she’ll puke!”

All three of them roll their eyes at me, or exchange looks with each other when they think I’m not looking. But I see them, for I am now a mom, and “I have eyes in the back of my head.” I know they think I’m a big worrywart, but it comes with the territory Momness, along with less sleep and no privacy.

Well. *ahem* Guess what happened yesterday?

About 10 a.m. (two hours after breakfast), Lucy and I were playing chase up and down the hallway. After a particular vigorous run, I scooped Lucy up in my arms, and bounced her back into the kitchen. Where her eyes glazed over for a sec, she burped, then — you guessed it! — puked all over the front of her sleeper, down my hoodie-clad arm, then over my bare hand (ohdearlord, that last part was SO gross).

So, without further ado…

I told you so.