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

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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???

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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.

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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.

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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.

Ukrainian Christmas

Most people who have met me, or talked to me, or given me any reason at all to mention it know that I’m from a Ukrainian/Mennonite-Canadian family. I’m sort of obsessed with history and genealogy, yet between deceased grandparents and dementia it’s almost impossible for me to get anywhere with the resources I have to hand. So I cling pretty fiercely to the bits of family memory I can salvage and I’m proud of my heritage.

My dad as a baby, outside their prairie shack somewhere in Manitoba

My family isn’t big on many Ukrainian traditions. We don’t speak Ukrainian, we weren’t enrolled in any Ukrainian activities (like Ukrainian dancing), and we all grew up on Vancouver Island, where there isn’t a large Ukrainian community. My mum and I keep up a few traditions that she sort of remembers, but as her family had lost touch with the Orthodox faith even these are sort of secularised. Not that it makes much difference to us, because we mostly center our family traditions around yummy food!

Or in this case, Gramma centers her Christmas tree amongst some Ukrainian Easter eggs...

So, as we had spent English Christmas in Victoria, we convinced my parents to postpone (relatively, as my 23-year-old baby brother still needed an English Christmas, apparently) Christmas until Ukrainian Christmastime (which falls on January 7th). Then we had to change the date again, since John needed to be back at University before then, so on January 5th we celebrated our English-Ukrainian-Christmas. This was David’s first time to celebrate Christmas with my family, so I was really excited.

decorating the tree a couple of weeks beforehand -- somehow John always ends up getting garland/beads/ribbon wrapped around him as a trial run. I wonder who's responsible for that...

We like to do all our present opening in one go, stockings first, then tree presents, so that’s the way it rolled. I always love opening the stockings, because “Sandy-Claus” usually fills them with some choice picks of chocolate, a few little bits & bobs, and then a new piece of jewellery for me. Everything a girl could desire! This year was no different. And then the under-the-tree presents...wow. My parents had gone all out, which was really unexpected since they’d helped with the cost of our flight home. My brother, who hands out the presents, is always guided to ensure that we all get our ‘big’ present last, which this year was just as well as it was pretty hard to get me to focus on anything once I unwrapped a brand new Kindle. I love to read, but with all the travel and juggling of a baby it’s been so hard to get through paper books (and they’re so heavy to pack). The Kindle was an ideal solution, and my book-reading has almost returned to normal now that I can access e-books.

Walter amazed everyone by interacting with his presents, and we took videos in which you can see my brother & parents intently focused on Walter and his gift opening, while David and I sit in the background playing with our new toys (David got a fancy electric razor) and basically passing off the parenting responsibility... Walter’s big present from my parents was a Baby Einstein Jumperoo. In order to ensure he got a lot of use out of it he’d been given it when we arrived in December, so by Christmastime he was an expert at jumping. It was a great gift for our mobile little guy.

Walter gets some help with present opening from Uncle Johnny

After presents and clean-up my mum made us a delicious breakfast of German pancakes (like crepes), peach & whipped cream filling, and bacon. Then we relaxed and helped cook the big Christmas dinner, which is a mix of Canadian foods (like turkey) and Ukrainian food (like the perogies mum & I made from scratch). My Gramma and some family friends came over to join us and it was a really lovely evening. It was the first time I’d been home for the holidays since 2008 and it was wonderful. Even with all the stress of travel and not knowing where we were going to be living come spring, we are thankful that we had the opportunity to spend Walter’s first Christmases with our families back home.

We also had snow! So that was nice and Christmassy, although it delayed our trip back to Victoria by a couple of days since the roads weren't in good driving condition. Made up for it with lovely woodland walks.

Home

In the fall of last year I took a trip to BC. I had a wonderful time visiting friends and family, especially once the stress of waiting for my visa was alleviated. What struck me the most about my visit, however, was how I never truly felt that I was ‘back home’ until I began the journey to Port Alberni.

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Autumn at Sproat Lake

Home. It is a curious word for me, full of so many different meanings. It means Cambridge, East Anglia, and England. It also means Canada, Vancouver Island, and Sproat Lake. The restful, comforting feeling of being back where I belong begins when I see the mountains meeting the ocean from the plane window, increases with the first whiff of the fresh sea breeze, and then overwhelms me on the drive from Nanaimo to Port Alberni. This drive is usually made at night through the quiet mountain highway, with deepening darkness as we leave the towns behind and head out towards the lake. There is a chill in the air when we finally open the car doors, an instant of pure silence, then a rush of animals and humans converging on the car. Now I am truly home.

In the early morning, grey mist obscures the evergreens, dances in ghostly wisps along the river, and the scent of wood smoke lies heavy in the air. You breathe in, deep, and can sense the weather, snow or rain, in the purity of the air. The rain strikes the roof with a patter, runs through the evergreen branches like a waterfall, and drowns the view from the windows. Every day but Sunday I wake in the chill of a west coast autumn. The house feels damp, but not as damp as my flat in Cambridge. I’m awake just long enough to let a cat in, or out, and take a sip of water. I roll over. Some time later the furnace roars to life, the heating ducts release their peculiar morning scent, and the room begins to warm. That is when it’s time to get up. And, since I am in part a visitor, there is little that I need to do. I may offer to cook, may help with some light house or yard work, but mostly I curl up and read novels, watch television shows, or root out the various edibles that mum always has and that I never stock in my other life. On certain days I break this pattern and leave with mum when she goes to her office, so that I can run errands “in town” and visit with people. I see dear friends, I spend a lot of time with my Grandma, and if I am lucky I have time to drive by a few of my favourite places, time maybe even to stop for a minute.

Back at the lake, the fruit hangs thick on the branches. On a rare dry day the plums are ripe for picking, with enough to spare that even the bees have their fill. The success of the harvest is measured in the number of ice-cream buckets filled with fruit. After counting comes a careful division of bounty: some for the home, some for family, some for friends. The air carries the musky, plummy smell of fresh-picked fruit resting in cardboard crates. Near the garden, the green apples, which no one but dad likes, litter the ground and weigh down the branches. We make a mess of sorting them by picking the ground apples first, because we do not account for the ones that fall to the ground when the branches are cleared and thus have to sort the ground apples twice. The apples give no scent, but the garden emits the rich smell of the earth, and the grass breathes out its dew, and the air comes clean down the mountains and across the lake.  As I relieve the trees of their burden I thank them, and understand a little of St Francis’ ideas of our siblinghood with nature.

Slowly the sky darkens against the pine trees. The nights are cool and most days there is rain, so lighting the fires is not excessive. The stamp of booted feet, the thud of wood being thrown into a box, and the rattle of grating and stove lid—these are the sounds of my childhood. This wood heat is different from any other. It does not mask the damp, it burns it away and leaves you warm to your very core. The night’s chill seeps in around the windows and the scent of the cool air mingles with that of the warm fire. Evenings are a time of easy companionship until, one-by-one, we make our way to cool beds and the thick darkness of a country night.

As I pass my days on this visit home I keep smiling to myself, because I am thinking of my other home, the home waiting for me back in England. The life I led growing up in this small town is so very different, at least on the surface, from the life I lead now. I think of my husband, shaking hands with the Prince of Wales. I think of balls and formals, evening gowns and ever-flowing champagne, buildings older than the nation I hail from. I think of museums, plays, operas, symphonies, galleries.  Yet this return to the place of my birth, to the trees and the water and the mountains that are etched in my deepest being, is what grounds me back in myself. This return is what allows me to understand the person I am at now, because at every turn I meet the person I was. I walk through ghosts upon ghosts of myself, and that is why I smile, because I have gone farther than I ever dreamed, and then I have come back to appreciate all the more what I have left behind, have come back to temporarily alleviate the burden of this peculiar sacrifice.