Just a matter of days...

Our visa applications have finally been approved for submission! Hurray! I didn’t realise just how stressed I was until I got the phone call saying that all the applications had been approved. We’re going to Vancouver tomorrow to pick up our visas. I must say that I’ve been impressed with the number of things that Consulate has in place to help with application hiccups. For one thing, although your application may get sent back a few times for additional information there is no fee to pay for these rejections and I never was left with the impression that things wouldn’t work out. Other countries want the fee upfront, before you learn if you’re accepted or denied. As well, the office is set up with a photocopier and printer, so that if the documents you need are readily available you can actually procure them without leaving the Consulate. This came in quite useful to us on Monday past. 

Now comes the part that, in years past, was the most stressful – the packing of the suitcases. This time I am not freaking out, or at least not freaking out most of the time. I think it helps that the luggage allowance for Asia isn’t as horribly restricted as for the rest of the world. 2 suitcases per person feels like a luxury now that most international destinations only allow 1. And when two of those people are basically the size of one large suitcase, there is perhaps a little more space available for packing than one those suitcases all belong to one adult! It also helps, of course, that I’ve done this move & setup thing so many times in the past. It’s not that I don’t think there will be stressful times, it’s just that I’ve learned not to bother anticipating that stress this time around.

This morning I woke up to the sound of the rain running through the pine trees outside my window. The sky is a luminous white which suggests that the rain will stay. The children & I have been snatching outdoor time here & there, whenever we can, and it’s not often because the rain will not stop. It is easier to embrace the dreary weather because I know there are not many days left of waking up in a 100 year old logging-shanty-turned-cottage in the middle of a coastal rainforest. Soon I’ll be waking up to…I don’t know what. I know that our place has a lot of opportunities for cleaning & tlc, but that’s ok. For the first time in three years I’m looking forward to having the time & energy to creatively turn our home into something cozy.

See? Cozy

When it's not raining

And sometimes even when it is

Waiting to Move

I mentioned that the kids & I were waiting for some paperwork to come through before we could join David in China. As difficult as it is to be without him, there have been a few benefits to this (for us, probably not for him!):

1. Settling in to life in a new country is always challenging, and I don’t just mean the learning to do things in a new place. Expat life has this really glamorous image thanks to those Expats who work for big multinational corporations that give them incentive packages to live overseas. This is certainly not the reality for many of us, so travel to a new country usually involves trying to squeeze all one’s worldly goods into 1 or 2 suitcases and then doing a fair bit of roughing it until one has a chance to set up home. I really hate that David is going through this set-up experience without us, but I’m glad for the sake of the children that things will be a little more settled when we do arrive. 
2. Having time to ease into back into stay-at-home-mum life is amazing. I keep having to remind myself that it’s OK to take as much time as I want to play games with the children – I’m used to having to squeeze all of our fun into a few hours balanced with housework. I know a big part of this is due to being at my parents, since my mum is taking care of most of the meals and if I have any urgent business to attend to I can easily shut the door and get it done, but it’s certainly helping me feel more relaxed and that’s leading to an easier transition with the kids. I’m not sure how things will change once we’re settled but I think there will be a nice change of pace with David coming home from his office every day to give me some downtime. Walter is also supposed to start school in September so I’m trying to enjoy every last moment with my big boy preschooler right now. 
3. Being able to have all this quality time with my parents is great. It’s the first time since the kids were born that my visits will them haven’t had an undercurrent of change & stress. I mean, maybe this sounds crazy since I’m in the middle of moving overseas, and certainly I have my moments of feeling incredibly stressed, but there’s also lots of time to just kick back and enjoy life. The kids are running around the house & playing with my childhood toys, mum & I spend our days doing spring cleaning and planning yummy things to make, we go for walks in town, there’s lots of opportunity to visit my Gramma, and mostly we’re just enjoying each other’s company on this extended quasi holiday.

sleepy Annie is happy she can indulge in green apples & peanut-butter 

building before breakfast

7 Quick Takes -- Vol. 21, or mostly the No Sleep Blues

--- 1 ---

You might be familiar with the plight of Meriam Yehya Ibrahim. I saw brief mention of it on the news the other night, and I’ve read more in-depth articles via my Facebook feed. A friend of mine wrote an excellent article with all the information one needs in order to help voice outrage at this case to the appropriate people. Spare a minute, click the relevant links, and add your voice to ours. Saints Felicity & Perpetua, pray for us!

--- 2 ---

St Felicity is the saint that I chose for Emily, so I have felt particular outrage at Meriam’s story (as she has been likened to a modern day St Perpetua/St Felicity). SS Perpetua & Felicity were some of the first non-Biblical saints that I’d heard of. I thought maybe I was being silly for choosing a martyr of the early church, because it didn’t seem like it might be relevant any more. Clearly I was wrong.

--- 3 ---

On a happier note, at least for me...David & I have been really lucky to get a couple date nights recently – we put the kids to bed and my parents obligingly watch them while we head to the late show. We’ve seen Neighbours, which I loved, and Godzilla, which I only found so-so. Driving home from the movie theater makes me feel so young, because late-night drives across Port Alberni always take me back to the summers when I was a desk clerk at the Esta Villa Motel and worked the late shift.

--- 4 ---

And in other news...this has been the week of no sleep blues. On Sunday the monsters babies both slept in so late that we were late for Mass because our human alarm clocks didn’t go off at all. After that, most nights, it’s been a party here from 2-5am. Not fun. Possibly, hopefully a growth spurt that will end soon???

--- 5 ---

I’ve been too sluggish feeling to contemplate leaving the house, so we’ve been trying to get our exercise this week by frisbee playing. It’s loads of fun to toss it around in the backyard after supper. Walter runs & plays & occasionally comes over to see what the adults are doing, and Emily sits outside in a little rocking chair, cheering & waving her legs & sucking on her shoes.

--- 6 ---

Although this has been a week of no sleep blues, I’ve at least been rockin’ in the kitchen when I finally haul my butt in there. Highlights – Long Boy Cheeseburgers (and thanks to my cousin for an old Menu Plan Monday that led me to these babies), buffalo wings, honey mustard pork roast with crackling....so good. And both kids have been eating like there’s no tomorrow, with Walter even saying a big “yeah!” to the question of if he liked mama’s special chicken.

--- 7 ---

Brain too fried to come up with another take, so here’s the theme song for this week (Incredible String Band's No Sleep Blues)

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

2013 in 13

After finally catching up I am, once again, woefully behind on blogging. I still need to post about Hallowe’en, and Christmas, and all that other stuff. But the kids are being normal kids, instead of those ones that baby experts seem to base their books off of (dolls, maybe?), so sleep is short around here and time is shorter and and and...

And and and, it makes sense to cover off 2013 in a picture post! Because I can look for pictures with one hand while feeding Emily with the other. So here we go, and if you like the idea you should join the link up.

2013 in 13 Pictures

I love this picture, mostly because it makes my mum look like a hobbit. Also because the back story is literally a back story – she was having all sorts of weird pains with her back and neck and could barely move, but it didn’t stop her from trying to finish the kitchen renovations. Anyway, that’s not why I picked this. I picked it because the hominess of it sums up all the wonderfulness that is just being at home with a loving family. Even if the circumstances that brought me home weren’t ideal, it was wonderful being able to spend so much time with my family:

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This picture has been affectionately titled “Walter Needs a Visa”. The expression on his face pretty much sums up how I felt for most of last winter when I let myself dwell too much on the uncertainty facing our family. This is Walter’s visa picture, so it was taken when I at least knew where I was going, and that I had a job to go back to, and that we wouldn’t have to be away from David any longer. I knew the upcoming months would be difficult, but at least we’d be together:

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This is Easter, 2013. Walter & I were both horrendously sick with the ‘flu and couldn’t make it to the Easter Vigil, which broke my heart. We were also still in transition, not yet settled, and everything still seemed dark and dreary. So I sang. I sang the Exultet to Walter, to welcome in Easter Morning, and as I sang the dark cloud lifted and broke and I felt as if there was hope again. And miraculously enough, that was the day our flu cleared up:

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We moved to Ely, thus fulfilling my dream of living out in the English countryside. It’s been marvelous:

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David & Walter at the Eel Festival. Why? Because it was one of the first outings we had once we got settled in. But more than that, because it’s my little boy back with his daddy, having the time of his life. Two months apart was way too long:

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A bump! And at this point in time I was still hopeful that I would give birth “on time”. And I finally was looking pregnant. And the ultrasounds were looking good and the pregnancy was on track and it seemed that despite some worrying in the first trimester, Secunda was here to stay:

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Ely Folk Festival, which kicked off the start of my maternity leave. This family loves folk music. Being able to take Walter to his first festival and experience it with him was amazing. It was one of the highlights of the year, especially because it was so nice to just be doing fun things as a family again:

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Emily, less than two hours after birth. So thankful I had to be induced, because it kick started natural labour while I was at the hospital and I went from 4cm to Baby in about three hours, which would’ve been a nightmare if we’d been driving from Ely. And it was so nice to experience a normal birth and to have that special time where the three of us could get to know each other:

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My mum came to visit, for a month, and although most of that month was a blur of me being super exhausted and grouchy and way too pregnant, it was still lovely. She got to spend so much time with Walter and that is really special, especially since she was the first person he saw when he crashed into the world the previous August:

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Aside from Emily’s birth, this would have to be the highlight of the year – David completed & submitted his dissertation on time, and passed his viva, and very very soon I'll be able to sign myself "Dr & Mrs". I still cry when I think about the day we went, as a family, to submit his dissertation. To take all the blood, sweat, & tears, particularly of the last two years, and see that the sacrifices really did accomplish something... words fail:

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I got my nose pierced, after wanting one since I was a teenager. And I finally feel as if I look like myself and as if one more key to understanding my personality is visible:
 

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I turned thirty!

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Being able to celebrate Christmas in England with my England Babies. It was special to have our own Christmas this year, to introduce them to our little traditions, and to enjoy watching them experience the holiday:

2013 was a hard year. But it wasn’t as hard as 2012 and it at least brought us forward instead of keeping us in a horrible limbo. I don’t know what to expect from 2014. I’m nervous about this next stage of life, with everything so uncertain and unsettled, so I am trying to take it one day at a time. But I think we're going to be ok.

English Christmas

I'm interrupting the irregularly scheduled chaos of my life with "2-under-2" to do some way delayed backlog of travel blogging, ie: English Christmas or Walter's First Christmas or Our First Christmas in Canada Since Getting Married or something to that effect. Because you know, it's almost Christmastime again...

From Berlin to Vancouver, or, One of the Most Stressful Days of my Life

Leaving Berlin was perhaps more stressful than arriving there. For a couple of weeks prior to our leaving date, I’d noticed a faint moldy smell in the flat and a few small spots of mold on the walls. I’d emailed our landlord about it and he told us not to worry, but just to ensure that we kept airing the flat out for five minutes a day, which we did.

Friday, the day before our flights, was designated to finish cleaning the flat & packing our bags. Unfortunately Walter has a little episode every time we try to pack, and demands constant attention, so we weren’t really able to settle him until late afternoon. David began packing his bags and that was when he made the awful discovery – the whole wardrobe, and the wall behind it, was covered with a gross green mold. The more stuff we moved the more we found. It in our clothing, on our suitcases... it was awful. I spent the evening at the laundromat, washing most of David’s clothing as he was heading back to England & staying with friends, so didn’t want to bring a bunch of moldy clothes with him. We contacted our landlord right away who said not to worry... 

It had come through the wall and into the wardrobe, and then into our clothes... YUCK

It was 3am before I was able to say that the cleaning & packing was finished. I went to bed and was up by 8am the next morning to finish the organising and pack last minute things, like Walter’s diapers. At 8:45 our landlord arrived, but he had another man with him. At this point in time David & I were both feeling strongly suspicious. The other man was allegedly an “insurance inspector” and, as I’m sure you can guess, the mold problem was blamed on us and, after realising that we needed to resolve the issue or miss our flights, we ended up having to lose our damage deposit (I’d had an inkling this might happen when I booked the flat) and hand over a substantial, but not completely prohibitive, sum of additional euros.

I was, as you can probably understand, quite upset. In October I had found out that my job was at risk of redundancy, which meant that our ever-dwindling savings were possibly the only thing we would have to support us. David was heading back to England and although we knew that we’d see him at Christmas, we had no idea what would be happening after that. We’d hoped to spend our last day in Berlin enjoying time together as a family, and instead it was just full of mounting stress. By the time we got to the airport on Saturday morning I was struggling to keep it together. We had hoped to have a few hours together at the airport, but after I checked in with Walter we learned that David’s flight was cancelled. So we ran to the British Airways flight desk and got him on the first available flight, which happened to be leaving in fourty minutes. So much for family time.

I don’t remember being particularly stressed at the airport. I think I had reached my limit and ‘switched off’. And, thanks to the wonderful people at Air Berlin, we had a really enjoyable flight to New York. They’d given us a bassinet seat for the journey, so I didn’t have to keep Walter on my lap, and they even had a bag of baby essentials (diaper, toys, bottle etc) that kept Walter occupied. In fact he enjoyed the nine-hour flight so much that he spent most of it befriending the stewardesses and surrounding passengers instead of sleeping!

In New York things started falling apart. I’d requested assistance at the airport, since I had to transfer between airlines and check my bags again, and American Airlines had assured me that I would have all the help I’d need. Imagine my delight when I exited my flight and was told there there would be no help. I blessed the good angel that had put it into my head to buy Walter a baby hawk carrier, because we wouldn’t have made it through the airport without it. The staff at JFK were appallingly rude. I mean, I know that New Yorkers are stereotyped on being proud of their rudeness, but in most places that I’ve traveled people at least take pity on a mum struggling with a young baby. Not so there! It was a member of the Air Berlin staff who saw me struggling to wheel a loaded suitcase trolly and Walter’s stroller to the baggage drop and offered to help. I was grateful for the assistance but at the same time really pissed off that it took a fellow foreigner to step in and help me because none of the Americans working at the airport could be bothered. At every turn throughout the airport, whether checking in for our AA flight or going through security, we were harassed and scolded. It got so bad that I almost lost it at security, when they were berating me for not being fast enough (and meanwhile Walter was half-slipping out of the carrier because no one would hold him and there was no where to put him down safely while I struggled back into my shoes). I think it was the look on my face that got them to back off. 

I’d hoped to relax on our flight, but AA kept to their usual standards and we ended up crammed into a corner seat. Walter screamed his head off for a good ten minutes, because no one was doing much to answer my service call for a glass of water with which to mix his formula. If we hadn’t had both fallen asleep it would’ve been an unbearable six hours to Seattle, since we couldn’t even get out of our corner to stretch our legs or use the toilet. And even tho’ it was a six hour flight, we were only served a small beverage partway through (I know this is fairly standard now for domestic flights, but keep in mind that I was on the second leg of an international flight and hadn't had any chance to get food at the airport due to my connection).

My brave little trooper. Unless he was unbearably uncomfortable he didn't cry.

I knew better than to expect assistance from AA when I arrived in Seattle, so Walter and I struggled on the whole length of the airport. I’d not eaten in over 12 hours, my bags were heavy, and I was just in auto pilot. Fortunately I have an awesome brother who can always be counted on to keep a look-out, and just when I was ready to collapse he came racing towards us and the next things I knew I was surrounded by my family and the hell of the last 48 hours was at an end. Soon all my bags were collected, loaded into the car, and we were racing off towards Denny’s for an 11pm dinner before driving back to Canada. 

Walter remembered his Baba!

Meeting Uncle Johnny & Opa for the first time. Denny's -- it's where the magic happens.

As an aside, I must point out how happy I was to see that Denny's had taking their marketing one step too far. I'm pretty sure I heard Tolkien rolling over in his grave:

 

Is this like a Titus Andronicus pie?

Because Hobbits love heart attacks! We all ordered off the special Hobbit menu. I had Gandalf's Gobbler (ie a turkey sandwich). A part of me died.