Author: admin

To begin this story, you have to know that Vero and I went cross country skiing on Sunday which resulted in me being sore on Monday.

So Vero and I head to Montfort Hospital for our second ultrasound on Monday. Exciting times, we get to potentially see more things happening than last time!

As we are walking up to the main entrance of Montfort, I can feel the soreness of my legs and so I’m in the process of doing a stretch mid-stride and I say to Vero:

(In French) “Boy, am I sore!”

Vero does a double take and so do the old couple walking on by.

I recognize this double take. It means I must have messed up something in French.

“What did you just say?” Vero asks.

“Boy, am I sore!” I reply.

She starts laughing hysterically and now I know I have clearly falling into the Anglophone trap. You know the trap I’m talking about…the one where there are so many words stumbling through your brain that sometimes, you just use the wrong one.

“What did I say?!” I ask.

“You should said “Boy, I have an erection!”

Kids, just remember that “Je suis racker” and “Je suis bander” are not interchangeable and racker is the appropriate word to say you are sore (excuse my conjugation/spelling), I’m still not sure how it’s spelled.

I just hope the old lady passing by didn’t tell her husband “I wish you would say that to me once in awhile.”

Like every other working Canadian right now, I’m not looking forward to returning to work tomorrow.  Gone are the mornings of sleeping in, nursing a hangover and thinking “Hmm…what shall I do today?” (although I’m sure that’s what retirement is like!)

At least Vero and I were smart enough to make the most out of a nice zero degree day and went cross country skiing.  It’s always a struggle to get me out and doing some form of physical activity but when I get there, I’m quite happy.  It was a perfect day out in the woods (other than the constant non-existence of sunshine without cloud cover around Ottawa) with Vero and it makes me realize that cross country skiing is a fabulous way to spend an hour on a Sunday.

We also put away the Christmas decorations which always is the worst part of my year.  Why can’t we just leave the lights up all year long?

So what does next week hold for me?  I’m sure that it will take a day or two to get settled back into the routine of work.  There are probably tons of Christmas decorations to take down if no one has done so already.  Plus it’s time to gear up for the upcoming baby!  Vero has started her lists so now it’s time to keep an eye open on Kijiji for some good deals to be had.

I had one mission on Saturday and that was to get milk and while I was at it, some other groceries.  I had a thought that Costco on a Saturday is sort of like a suicide mission, but I had nothing else on my plate while Vero went to shop for maternity clothes so off I went.

I should have sensed the alarm bells as soon as I creeped into the parking lot and had to tour around two or three times to find a spot to park.  Or maybe it was the point where I went to the entrance and there were no carts left.  I went back to a cart area in the parking lot and managed to find one, but they were slim pickings.  Did everyone in Gloucester have a cart today?

Of course they did!  It was a little hectic inside so I stuck to the back aisles as much as possible (and also stumbled into Laura and her friend) but I made my way to the back of the store to pick up some milk.

I’m not sure if it’s my marathon viewings of The Walking Dead but the milk area looked like it fell victim to  a zombie apocalypse-like run for supplies.  There were three bags of skim milk left along the back wall with no 1% to be found.  What the heck!?

With that, I finished picking up other groceries and headed out to the parking lot which was a graveyard of vehicles.  As in…they were all still.  Not one was moving, but there were the sounds of horns and the visages of some very frustrated people out there.  In fact, I saw one guy who screaming to the point of being red in the face while his wife sat next to him.  I realized then that people should just relax in situations such as these and that’s what I did.

After fifteen minutes of sitting in the exact spot I was parked in, I realized that I may as well venture out and get some food.  Off to get a schwarma down the street!  I had no worries…it wasn’t like the parking lot was going to empty anytime soon.  I mean, if I couldn’t even reverse out of my spot in fifteen minutes, there was no way that would change for another 30 minutes while I had lunch.

I ended up back at the same situation I left and sat in the car and thought to myself “Well, I should take this as a sign to do something constructive with my time.”  Unfortunately all I had in the car was a user manual and a map book to read.  I then decided to pop in the new Corb Lund album my parents picked up for me and listened along while reading the lyrics.  I have to say that this was some prime quality time and I’m glad I took advantage of it as I did!  An hour later I finally managed to sneak my way out of the parking lot and headed to another grocery store to pick up some milk.  There’s no way I could come back empty handed!

The moral of this story?  Never go to Costco on a Saturday, let alone the first Saturday where they start accepting returns after the holidays.  Also, if life gives us an hour of time to do something…use it smartly…read a book, listen to some music or smartly just walk away and come back in an hour.  You’re not gaining anything by just sitting there getting frustrated.

Vero and I got back from a trip up North over the past week.  This year there seemed to be more time to do things whereas other years it feels like we don’t have much time at all.  We got to spend some great time at both our families houses as well as visit some people around town.  Abigail is two years old now and is quite exiting to be around.

If I had to rate my levels of interactions with children, I would say helping them when they cry is the lowest (of course…who really has that at a high level?), then playing with them is second and just watching them while they play by them self or walk around is my favourite interaction.  It’s really a marvel to try and understand what that kid is thinking and see what creativity is inside.  Prime example: the night we were leaving the North, Abigail started pouring cups of tea for herself and then decided to start offering it up to her Dad.  Mimicry is quite amazing.

John and I got some good jam sessions in during the holidays.  It’s a shame we don’t live closer because we gel together well.

On the baby front, I was glad to chat with Dad over the holidays as he eased some fears I had of whether or not we could offer children.  I know that we can definitely afford them, but I’m wired in a way that I need to understand the costs of a project.  There is little to no information on this subject and I can only assume it is because people just don’t have time to calculate this while taking care of a baby!  They just DO it.  Dad explained that back in the day (at least in his case), there wasn’t even much thought into whether or not a person could afford a kid…they just went ahead and had one and that was that.  After chatting a bit more about this at the dinner table with everyone, I am more at ease with having a kid from the financial side, but there are some unanswered questions out there.

Namely, at what point is it worth it to stay at home vs. put the kid in daycare.  That’s the big question right now and I know that we are 1.5 years away from having to do this, but preparation is never a bad thing.

We are very fortunate to have friends and family in our life who helped us out with the baby while we were there.  We ended up packing the Mazda CX-5 to the gills with baby stuff…a crib, TWO bassinets (one which was built by Vero’s dad for Vero when she was a baby), a change table, assorted odds and ends and Fredo, the stuffed monkey (thanks Andreane and Guillaume!).  It was a little insane bringing that all home and we almost had to leave Vero behind, but we figured out how to pack it.  Now my mission is to find a small little part which is missing from the crib.  At this point, the only lead I have on it is a used parts store down in the United States which sells it for $20USD but ships it internationally for $50!  Plus we need to buy a new mattress at a $100 so we’re debating whether or not to get a different crib.  I think I might just opt for shipping the part to Ogdensburg for $8.

Happy New Year’s to all!  Vero and I spent New Year’s Eve at home with a fire and watched The Hateful Eight which definitely was not one of Tarentino’s finest films.

Special thanks to Mom, Dad, Danielle and Gaetan for their hospitality and great food.  Mom, that roast and porketta stands in the halls of time as the greatest meal I ever had!

One night back in Kapuskasing, the Konopelky’s came over for what can only be described as the best roast beef and porketta Mom had ever made.  After that mighty feast, John and I pulled out the guitars for a night of tunes being plucked on the six strings.

Vero said she felt something weird going on while John and I sang and played and she has now identified it as the baby’s first kick!

Special thanks to John for helping provoke this special moment!

So with pregnancy comes a lot of tests; bloodword, ultrasounds, etc.  I have to say that I have probably seen our Doctor more than I have ever seen her in the past decade!

Vero had gone for another blood test which they compare with the previous blood test to see if things a-ok and it sounds like they do!  Without any specifics yet (we are going to see the Doctor next week), that’s a relief.  Here I was hoping that we would be giving birth to the next form of homo-superior would have the ability to play every musical instrument known to man…hey, maybe there is still a chance since I doubt bloodwork can scan for mutants yet.

Right now, we are looking into the benefits of getting a midwife over an obstetrician.  I think we are leaning towards a midwife but having the baby in a hospital and not a birthing center.  Primary reason being that Montfort hospital has free wifi!  Heyo!

For the 11th year in a row, we had a great turnout of friends to our annual Christmas party.  It was especially great to see Michael and Melanie drop by considering they are on Babywatch 2015 right now.  I was hoping that Melanie would have gone into labour right then and there but no such luck!

As always (or revisionist history might say), the men won the trivia cup!  There is no actual cup any longer as someone must have walked off with it (or it is very well hidden in our own home) but we celebrated nonetheless after our grand victory.

I have no idea what the future will hold in terms of Christmas parties…I would like to think that there will be one each year but who knows how the baby and parents will fare with sleep and parties?  But I don’t think we want to be the type of parents who shy away from attending events, but at the same time, we have NO idea what to expect and maybe it will be hell for us to even think of getting out of the house!  Time will tell I suppose.

I really enjoyed hearing Jeff tell me that I would make an excellent father after he witnessed the makeshift bed I made for Felix.  Melissa and Jeff both enjoyed the reading material I left for him!

Melissa and Jeff also dropped off a bag of what I am sure will be the first of many bags of baby related paraphernalia.  I have to admit that there were a few items that I was perusing that I honestly couldn’t figure out what they were used for.  Is it a bottle warmer? Is it something else?  Who knows?  They will drop and give us a crash course on the items they dropped off.

We also have to thank Mike and Melissa for giving us another excellent item for the house…an R2-D2 humidifier!  Also in the photo, my favourite t-shirt was found after a long year of taking a break.  It was still in the Christmas sweater I had thrown in the closet a year ago!

Woke up early this morning to get the day started on a good note…the party is tonight!

I whipped up a batch of chili with Vero and every year I try and convince her that we need more Pequin XXX hot flakes in the mix.  She disagrees.  One year I’ll be smart enough to make two batches of chili for the masses to try out.

Onto organizing a few games here and there.  The Annual Christmas party is always a good time and there is a mystery surrounding the birth of Mike and Melanie’s child…it’s about a week after it’s due date…will we get a call tonight that says they are in the hospital?  Maybe they will show up themselves at the party and I’ll have to deliver the baby myself (as any good host should do!).

Only time will tell!