PERKS OF BEING A MOM

Not having to pay even if my bus ticket is expired. I just get a smile and sometimes a new ticket which  I think is really sweet. It makes up for all the times that I was eight-nine months pregnant and no one gave up their seat for me when I was busing to work.
D.

7 THINGS I DID YESTERDAY INSTEAD OF PACKING

I figured this would be a nice follow up to yesterday's post, Bean has a two and half hour nap in the afternoon and usually that is my productive time but instead I just had a meltdown and avoided all my responsibilities.

One. I told everyone else how much stuff I had to do, not really complaining more in a panicky way. I called my mother, texted my friend, spoke to my sister and essentially just listed off all the things that I was supposed to be doing.
Two. I caught up on all my unread bloglovin posts, which took all of maybe ten minutes as I had just read a bunch of them before Bean went to sleep.
Three. I went in and stared at Bean while he slept, he makes the funniest face with his tongue sticking out.
Four. Wrote a blog post about all the stuff I was supposed to be doing.
Five. Laid in bed and debated whether or not I wanted to put make up on just so that I could feel pretty in order to offset my self-pity but then eventually decided it was too much work.
Six. Cooked up a nice  big lunch of sauteed kale and bok choy on brown rice
Seven. Decided that it was okay that I didn't get anything done, and that I would try again tomorrow.

D.

SOME THOUGHTS

I am feeling very uninspired right now. I decided to start this blog before my big move in order to try to get myself into the habit of blogging but the point of this blog is supposed to be my adventures and as of late my only "adventure" has been my almost daily walks to the nearby drugstore so that I can say I have left my house today. So in order to get myself back into this I am just going to blog about the mundane and everyday aspects of my life. It will be boring, it will likely be repetitive and there won't likely be any nice pictures but whatever. So today I am just going to talk about the fact that I haven't done anything to get ready for my move. Yes I have packed two of the three suitcases that I am bringing (even though I have to unpack them now and re-pack it), I have gotten rid of the majority of my clothing and books and mostly figured out exactly what it is that I will be bringing. But even with all that done my room still feels pack to the brim with tons of other things that are in the miscellaneous category of crap that I don't really know what to do with. Nearly every surface is pilled with random pieces of paper, and objects that I know aren't coming with me but I can't figure out if they are worth storing or if they should just be thrown out. I don't know I am just rambling because I also haven't figured out how I am going to say goodbye to everyone and to most of the comforts that I have grown used to so I am projecting my anxiety onto something superficial like packing.   D.

TWO THINGS I'VE LEARNED SINCE BECOMING A MOM

I've been a parent for all of six months now. and it has been an incredibly eye opening experience. I have several younger siblings so a lot of the things that babies do weren't new to me, I knew about the crying, the pooping, the lack of sleep etc, those were the things that I felt somewhat prepared for. Overall I thought that I had a pretty good grasp of what it took to parent a newborn but there were two things that I've learned that I never thought that I needed to know, and that I could not imagine not knowing now. Number One: Sticking to a routine I cannot remember a single point in my life that I have stuck to routine for chunk of time longer then say a week. I wouldn't say that I'm a easy going person, but I have also never been the one to have a set bedtime (or wake up either). Meals have always been whenever I felt like it or had time, days would go by that I would forget to eat (or be too lazy to get out of bed) until four in the evening. I would go to bed at two, three, or four in the morning and get up around twenty minutes before my classes started. Probably the only two things that I've ever been able to do consistently was shower and brushing my teeth, washing my face and removing my make up however had always been optional.  Fast forward to now, having a baby has taught me a lot about the importance of a routine, when your options are to do things at a certain time of day (and keep doing it) or  having baby cry and fuss constantly you learn how to adapt to a routine pretty quickly. Now we wake up, eat (him first, then me), nap, play, eat again, nap (I eat here), play, eat, play, bath, eat and sleep (and my dinner follows). I have my designated shower times and for the first time I'm even getting in washing my face in the mornings and evenings Our routine is easy especially because it only revolves around us two but I know that if Bean is getting difficult in the evening that it is because of disruptions in our routine...which brings me to my second thing. Number Two: How to be more adaptable Routines are great, they provide consistency and comfort, but since they are so great it means most people have one, and chances are it does not line up exactly with yours. At first when I was getting Bean first settled into a routine I kept trying to force us both into routines that didn't work for us, the first was the "no routine" routine of feeding on demand, staying up until we both fell asleep, carrying him around constantly and that was exhausting for me to say the least. As the weeks went by though I started to learn more about my baby and myself which helped with establishing a routine...but then he got sick and we were back to square one. Within the last six months, Bean has had two colds, I've had one, we traveled internationally, we've had out of town guests, a few parties, he started teething as well as many other little bumps and disruptions to our daily lives and guess what, we have survived. It is frustrating when things change unexpectedly, but as my mother enjoys reminding me this is all still new, and we are only human so sometimes you have to throw your routine out the window and just work with what life has handed you in this moment.
D.

THINGS I AM GOING TO MISS: TREE TUNNELS

One of the most beautiful things about Vancouver is it's tree-lined streets. Several residential streets in my neighbourhood have these beautiful, lush, green canopies overhead and I just adore them.

D.

JUNE GOALS

These are my final weeks before packing up and saying goodbye, so I figure this is as good a time as any to start working towards my goals. Some little things and some big things, I want to pick 4 things this month to work on (or towards) and then I will check in with myself at the end of the month to see how I did. Hopefully it works, here goes.

1. Complain less

2. Be organized and packed BEFORE I leave, and avoid my usual last minute packing frenzy.

3. Say goodbye to Vancouver

4. Blog post 2-3 times each week (Monday being the beginning of the week).


D.

WEEKLY APPRECIATION: 0.3

I bought fresh flowers for the first time, white peonies. I have never really cared much for flower, nor have I been willing to put in the effort to keep them alive but I must say, their really do add a little something to a space.

Curating my pinterest boards. I don't have much on there yet but that's mostly because I want to choose things that I really want to use for inspiration, not just things that I think are pretty.

I donated half of my wardrobe, I let go of pointless pieces I had been carting around for years in the hopes of maybe someday I'll have a reason to wear it. I feel like I am slowly liberating myself from the materialism which has been directing my life.

This book Bébé Gourmet by Jenny Carenco has been instrument in my introduction of solids to Bean. Not having a picky eater is super high on my how-I-want-my-child-to-behave priority list plus it is serving as the inspiration for the my apparent lack of creativity in figuring out what I should be feeding bébé.

Lastly, we got a kitchen for our place in Germany, which is something I am hugely thankful for (and especially to H for driving two and half to go pick it up). Picking out a kitchen felt like such a huge hurdle both financially as well as making this whole move more tangible to me. I leave in five and half weeks and it still doesn't seem real to me but I feel like making the investment into a kitchen is one more step in the "no turning back now" direction.