Iz started running a pretty high fever today. Probably not a big deal, but due to her kidney thing we are supposed to treat fevers like a big deal no matter what, so off to the doctor we went.

(Putting the rest behind a cut, because it's probably kind of dark and depressing. Iz is fine, btw, in case you'd rather not read the dark stuff to find that out.)

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I love this pic. :)

A few random things:

- Stuff about pregnancy that totally doesn't suck: ice cream at 2am. Mmm.

- Internet Mamas: Anyone here using the Bum Genius 3.0 cloth diapers? I ask, because it's what we've been using with Iz since she was 2-3 months old, and they've been great... up until a few weeks ago. Suddenly? Leakage. It's happened at daycare a few times, and at home as well. Am I doing something wrong, here? I'm wondering if maybe her bladder has grown to a size where the cloth diapers are at capacity now? Does the elastic around the legs wear out at a certain point? (It looks fine, but it's not like I paid a bunch of attention to how it looked before.) Any comments welcome.

- I forgot to mention something in my rant about working the other day.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, my family was not thrilled with our decision to put Iz in daycare. Not only is it not a traditional Mennonite thing to do, but with the recent rash of abuse cases that have become public within our immediate circle of acquaintances, there is increased suspicion and worry around that subject.

My mom and I dealt with it over a series of conversations, and I was somewhat expecting my dad to weigh in on the subject as well -- mainly because I knew she had called him the day she and I had the Big Daycare Talk. A few weeks back, he tentatively brought it up after I made a comment about how good daycare had been for us.

"Your mom called me about that," he started.

"Yeah, I know," I said, preparing to launch into my multiple point presentation about why daycare was really good both for us and for Iz, and why it was necessary, and most importantly, why I wanted this. "You know, I'm much happier when I'm working, and the full time mom thing just leaves me..."

That's as far as I got. He waved me off. "That's just not your personality."

I stopped short, and cut off the urge to continue justifying our decision. He totally got it.

Not only that? If what I wanted was to never work at a job for the rest of my life, and stay home and be with my kids, he likely would have said, "Of course, you're a mother."

He considers it to be 100% my choice, and my right, either way.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but my conservative Mennonite father might just be a really rockin' feminist.

A few days ago some information came my way -- a comment that was never meant to be heard by me, that was probably in some roundabout way meant to be compassionate: "I feel sorry for Sharolyn that she has to work."

You can probably guess my reaction. I threw my head back and howled with laughter.

I have no idea who said this -- I didn't ask, the person who passed it on to me didn't offer the information, and I'd rather not know, I think. As such, I have no idea if they read this blog or not, so hopefully I won't make anyone's brain explode by writing about this.

Let's put aside the whole idea about whether or not I do, indeed, "have" to work -- my finances and the arrangements I've made for my life are no one's business whatsoever. I will say that I am in a sort of weird and unique position in that regard, and if any woman on this planet has options, I do.

Anonymous Person who apparently knows me well enough to feel sorry for me, but doesn't know me well enough to actually know anything about me? I LIKE WORKING. I like it a lot, actually.

And the kicker? The thing you're really, really not supposed to say? The thing that will make other women look down on you and judge you? Being a full-time mom depresses me.

There. I said it.

It's not that I don't love being with my kid. I do. And I still find it really, really hard to leave her at daycare, even though she appears to love every second of it and can't crawl away from me fast enough when we arrive. And there is a part of me that really wants her near me every second of the day.

But you know... a few weeks straight of nothing but baby, and I'm crawling out of my skin. I cannot handle the lack of freedom, constantly being on-call for this tiny human being that frankly has a LOT of needs, the inability to sit down and concentrate on any one task for more than two minutes before a pair of tiny (and I must say, extremely cute) hands are tugging at my leg requiring my attention. If I had to do it all the time, I would probably end up on anti-depressants, or possibly viewing the world a little too often from the bottom of an empty bottle of wine. I would definitely not be a fun person to live with.

This isn't to say I don't have complete respect for women who do the full-time mom thing -- I do. It's just not for me. Period.

And ultimately, not that this is about her needs over mine, because it's not, but I believe my kid is happier and more well-adjusted when she's got a happier, more well-adjusted mom who's interacting with her. I think part of teaching your kid to be a functional, happy human being involves BEING a functional, happy human being. Radical, I know.

And really, I KNOW I'm living in the Valley, where women are expected to drop kids out without drugs (That damn Eve, ruining it for us by forcing Adam to eat the apple and sentencing us to suffer during childbirth forever!), then spend the rest of their lives raising them, and then maybe get a few years of freedom before dropping dead. And I know there's a lot of privilege here, and the question of having to work for financial reasons just isn't even a factor for most of the people I know here. And I get that this is a really, really different world from Vancouver, both economically and in terms of how women are viewed and well, pretty much everything is way different here. But you know. If I did "have" to work? THERE WOULD BE NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. I would *still* be happy, and my kid would still be happy, and my marriage would still be rockin', and my life would be just fine, thank you very much.

And so I guess what I'm saying is, yeah, in a roundabout way, I DO have to work, just not in the way you meant it, Anonymous Person. And please... save your assumptions, and don't waste precious time or energy feeling sorry for me. I'd really rather you enjoy your life, the way I'm enjoying mine.



Side note: I totally struggled during this entry with how to refer to women who stay at home with their kids. I settled on full-time mom, except that it irritates me, 'cuz my kid is in daycare right now but guess what? I'M STILL A MOM. "Stay At Home Mom" is an option, except I primarily work at my job within my home, so the inaccuracy kind of bugs me. "Working Mom" is just laughable, 'cuz I don't know any mom who doesn't work her tail off, no matter what she's doing.

So yeah. Maybe we should settle on referring to me as a Mom, just like a dad is still a Dad, even though he works at, like, a job! That takes him out of his home and away from his children! Craziness.

Spent the afternoon and evening at a wedding and reception, and feeling completely surreal as a result.

The happy couple are my cousin, and his wife who is also a very distant cousin of mine. We share a great-great-great grandmother. When my great-great-great grandfather Heinrich Wiebe got caught up on a barbed wire fence during a prairie snowstorm, his widow moved on and married the man who would become the bride's great-great-great grandfather. Got all that? Good. It gets more complicated.

The maid of honour was my oldest and dearest friend, who is the bride's first cousin -- their fathers are twins. The new couple's first child -- due within two weeks of my baby -- is probably destined to look a lot like my niece Cassidy, since the bride is a first cousin with my sister-in-law, and the groom is a first cousin to me and my brother.

The wedding attendees were about 75% former members of my mother's church, and mostly people who have been part of my life since before I was born. At some point someone came up to me and introduced himself as someone who used to post on a forum that was geared towards former members of my mother's church. He appeared to totally know who I was -- I couldn't remember anything about him. His wife, it appears, is related to my aunt and uncle in Manitoba, and knows my mom, and seemed thrilled to meet me.

And this, my friends, is what makes me feel claustrophobic in the Valley.

B and I both went to sleep about 8:30 last night, which resulted in both of us waking up ridiculously early. To celebrate, we packed up the baby and the dog, called slatergirl and Ms. Lolo to join us, and hit the local coffee shop and park.

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Am in glamorous Elliot Lake, Ontario, for the first family gathering in B's family in like, 9 years. (I've got such an easy in-law situation.) Utterly hilarious watching him and the uncles together, but that's all I'll say, because you need to be tactful about what you put on the internet.

I did, however, drive in Toronto for the first time ever, and I have to say? So civilized compared to Vancouver. People drive fast, yes, but they don't seem to do all the stupid shit that Van drivers do. I quite enjoyed the experience, especially considering I was trying to read Mapquest directions at the same time.

More later. Back home Tuesday. Also, am seriously, seriously pregnent. More on that later.

Went to the online forum populated by ex-members of my mother's church for the first time in a few years this morning. Still much the same... a few bright spots of people who've moved on to a better place, but mainly a lot of miserable people... still mired in their rage and pain (and somewhat understandably so, considering what's been done to some of these people), hating themselves, having Holdemans, hating gays, hating the world. Just trying to carve out some tiny little safe place for themselves.

I find it sad that so few have moved past their roots, and disappointing... but at the same time I have a lot of compassion for where they are. I think if I hadn't been lucky enough to meet the people I did in life, I might be there too.

I found this thread a little interesting, specifically Grace's answer:

My Dad used to say put someone where you can love them, I didn't get it then, but I do now.
I am able to love you holdemans when I put you in a category in my mind where my expectations of you are nil. No expectations. period.
May I share how I view them so that I can accept them? -as a bunch of crabs in bucket.
Did you know if you put one crab in a bucket it will crawl out and escape, if you put two crabs in a bucket, they will never get out, because one will always drag the other down.

I was thinking something like this yesterday after a talk I had with B. There's no point in continuing to be shocked and outraged and hurt when someone acts exactly like they've acted a million time before. You can accept them and love them anyway, or reject them and put them out of your life. Any other course of action is wasted energy on your part.

I need to practise this more.

B and I have discussed at length about what to do about our kid's last name. I use my "maiden" name (hate that term), and he has his original name. So what to name the kid?

A hyphenated name would be a terrible combination for our particular names. We'd discussed splitting them... girls take my name, boys take his name... but that idea feels problematic to me. I like the idea of the kids having a unified family name. At the same time, it makes me feel a bit strange to think of my kid having a completely different name from me. I think we've settled on my last name as kind of a second, second name, so it will be (first name)(second name)(my last name)(B's last name). It's a bit of a token gesture, and my last name will be utterly ignored, but at least it's there, y'know?

Anyway, in context of this discussion, I found this thread about men taking their partner's names quite interesting. And no, I'm not asking B to change his last name to mine -- it's just interesting to see the wide variety of creative ways people have dealt with this issue.

My aunt and uncle are out from Manitoba, so we had a big "family day"... my bro took time off of work, and my mom, aunt, uncle, brother, sis-in-law, niece (6 months) and two cousins (17 and 19 years old, respectively) came over for lunch. My dog was reasonably well-behaved, which was nice.

After that we drove out to Cleveland Dam in North Vancouver, which was actually pretty cool, and went on an hour long hike or so to the bottom of the dam. The women in the group mentioned an interest in checking out Dressew (huge fabric store on East Hastings) and the men went along with it, so that was the next stop. We had to park 2-3 blocks away, and walked to the store.

So picture this. A large-ish group of Mennonite women, plus me, walking through the downtown eastside. The men have stayed behind to deal with the car parking situation. Needless to say, because of the way they're dressed, we are a fairly conspicuous group, and lots of people take a second look. Fair enough, I'm used to that with these situations, and that's fine... but I'm slightly on edge and waiting for some crackhead to think it would be funny to take a shot at someone.

Sure enough, at the corner of Hastings and somewhere, a cracked out homeless dude, REALLY rough looking, yells out, "Hey! Where you ladies from?"

There's a pause as no one knows what to say, but that's okay, because he continues, "You're from the Church of God in Christ... Holdemans!"

Sis-in-law grins and says, "Yup!"

Cracked Out Dude sways a little, steadies himself on his shopping cart, point at himself and says, "Kleefeld, Manitoba!" (For reference: Kleefeld is a town of maybe 300 people, and the COG has a church there... one of about four churches in the town.)

Fortunately the light changed then, so he didn't try to hug us or anything... but how totally random. I giggled all the way across the street.

I sent that entry from this morning to my dad, and got this back, clearly from his Blackberry:

Shar very touching tks sooo much 4 sharing with your old Dad, I wud love 2 sit in a relaxed surrounding an discuss , you express so much how I felt when @ that old group.. I was smart an sharp yet rejected at a certain cultural level. Love an adore you dad

I seriously love this man so much.

My dad's in London right now. I texted him yesterday to tell him I saw Ms. Cassidy, and she's totally turning into a redhead. His response:

Many tks 4 update on Cassidy... Did you get some pictures? I miss her and look forward 2 seeing her soon. Thx Dad.

Grandpas are so cute. :)

Home from Victoria, and Dad's wedding, and so freakin' tired. Briefly, the whole event went off without a hitch, the bride was lovely, and I am seriously loving my new step-bro and sis-in-law and their adorable little one. (These are some seriously smart and interesting people, and you people know I don't throw that sort of commentary around lightly.)

There may or may not be more later about the weekend and the roller coaster of emotions and whatnot involved, including the the random Saturday night sobbing fit (seriously, WTF?) For now though, I think it's important I focus on the posh digs we stayed in, The Union Club.

Picture post the cut.
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Dad married. Reception over. Sooooooo tired.

Also, the Union Club? Rather snazzy.

A lengthy, rambly post about body image, fat, familial relations and whatnot after the cut.

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We spent yesterday in Abbotsford celebrating my sis-in-law's 30th birthday, and I took the opportunity to take some pics of Ms. Cassidy. I'm going to try not to plaster my entire LJ with pics of her, cuz I'm 98% sure the family wouldn't like it, but I am gonna post a bunch of pics of her nursery, which I think is adorable.

Some background: My bro and sis-in-law bought the house my mom used to own, and they took my old bedroom and made it into her nursery. I am convinced this room is infused with good mojo and am unreasonably happy that Cassidy is going to have it.

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The day after Ms. Cassidy was born, I got the following voicemail on my phone... Recording it here so I don't forget.

"Shar it's Dad. You've got to go see Cassidy tomorrow. That baby is unbelievable. I'm a little overwhelmed, I held the baby for half an hour while I was there and... I'm a little overwhelmed."

Before I begin, I'd like to note that one of my neighbours in the apartment across the alley is dancing all by herself in her living room. The lights are off, so she probably thinks people can't see her. I'm grinning at the goofiness of it, but kinda loving it at the same time.

So, what I was really gonna talk about... I took a quick trip out to Manitoba on the long weekend.

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