firemen to the rescue

we were out biking around in the city today, riding on the sidewalks and terrorizing pedestrians in the downtown core. it's ok - i can break my own "what the hell are you doing on the sidewalks you psychopathic bikers don't you know it's illegal" rules since i have the baby strapped to the back and the streets are patently dangerous. cole and i usually stick to the seawall, since it takes us everywhere we really want to go together, but today we had some wide-spread errands to run and the fastest, easiest, least sweaty way (well, as sweaty, but faster!) was to take the bike.

we stopped at the library to return some things and pick up some new things. i probably should have done this stop first, in retrospect. instead, we locked the bike up outside the library and walked to iga, about a block away.

you see, i needed some certo to make jam. i am determined to make pear jam this year. for the last two years at least i've been trying to make some and each year i've been thwarted. when i was pregnant we ran out of pears while i was making it, and then i realized we didn't have the right kind of pectin... at the time we lived in coal harbour and the closet grocery store was urban fare which, although it will have fiddleheads out of season and seventy kinds of expensive sea salt, did not carry old lady supplies like pectin... in the long run i gave up that year. and then last year apparently i was hoping to make some but the pears got all bashed up on the ferry and i never did make any. so this year, jam... anyway, we now live near science world and of course the closest grocery store is, again, urban fare. well, i have learned to go the route of most likely success, hence the trip to the iga on robson...

cole amused himself at the store by pulling large canisters of folgers off the shelves and then ramshackling all the carefully aligned bottles of juice. it took a long time to get through the line and then when we were waylaid by some refreshing-looking free iced tea samples on our way out. the iced tea samples lady was w.e.i.r.d and she kept telling me more about iced tea even though i was backing away awkwardly with a writhing baby in my arms... she welcomed cole to earth, and that was our cue to shake a leg.

we wandered back up to the library, and cole was distracted well enough by the interesting characters sleeping on the steps and the pigeons that surrounded them. inside though? i just went in to pick up the things i had waiting on hold, and then electronic check-out refused to serve me electronically since i owe the library money, and the library is serious if you owe them money - no more books for you! cole had been occupying himself with trying to push and pull a shopping basket while i fiddled with the machine, and wouldn't let it go so we could line up to pay our fines. so we walked, at toddler speed, barely avoiding tumbles down stairs and nearly taking out a lady with not one but two canes, towards the line. and we waited. and waited. and waited. cole became less enthralled with his basket but wanted to sit in it, and then didn't want to sit in it, and then wanted me to push him a little and then seriously would have none of me pushing him in it. and wanted a cracker but then wanted to throw the cracker on the floor and fuss. folks in the line behind us started out all "oh, so cute" and by the end were avoiding making eye contact... so by the time we paid our fines i was about as irritable and sweaty as if i'd pulled myself there hand over hand up a rope.

after a wrestle down the stairs to go the bathroom and a wrestle back up and a quick game of distraction when we saw a sample table of vitamin water (cole likes cups and colourful things, i think vitamin water is at best hooey and at worst kind of poisonous and what is it today with liquid samples?) we were back at the bike. i was prepared to ride quickly over to the park for some mandatory fun on account of it being so sunny but we couldn't resist stopping when we saw the firemen outside washing the firetrucks. cole of course made his firetruck noise and i stopped so we could watch, like weirdos.

turns out, apparently kids stop and look all the time. the firemen were so nice - they offered cole a chance to sit in the truck and brought him a swell hat and sticker and even took a photo of us together. thanks dudes!

that really perked us up... cole settled down enough to stop kicking my legs while i pedaled and we even made the trip to the park, where cole insisted on wearing his new hat, despite the fact that the wind blew it off every 1.4 seconds. very cute.

ps - upon getting home i realized we need lemon juice for the jam. i guess we'd better go get some after supper.

and the baby + bike sagareaches an eventual conclusion

i love to bike. we live directly across the street from the seawall that encircles the city, which is paved and bike-friendly, traffic-free and a beautiful way to see vancouver. so it only makes sense that we'd find a way to combine biking and baby...

for about a year now i'd been thinking of getting a bike trailer. seeing them whiz past us and ogling the freedom of the parent biking while wishing to be the kid hanging out in the back, all comfortable and speedy. so about a month ago i went out and bought a bike trailer. i didn't get the one i had in mind, because seeing it whiz by on the street didn't clue me in to the fact that it was about $600, the one i was liking... cripes almighty - that is a wad of cash to drop on something that is basically a novelty act. i looked on craigslist first, with no luck and eventually went and got a more affordable version at crappy tire. that was a pain in itself, finding someone who was actually working at canadian tire, persuading that surly someone to help me carry it up to the front of the store, going up front a few minutes later to realize that it never made it to the cashier and having to do it over again, then trying to drag it to the car while carrying a baby in a sling...

i assembled it while jamie was out of town, labouring in 30 degree heat and our kitchen once the sun went down and after cole was asleep. i actually read instructions. i got out tools. i sweated. and when i got the thing assembled i realized it was for two babies, which had not been noted on the box. ahh - that's why it was so large, i thought... and i got the heebie-jeebies because although having something that carried two babies did not mean i had two babies to carry, it's kind of terrifying to think about, what with the sheer amount of work and all.

i took it apart because i hated the thing, packed it back into the box and took it down to the car. then i thought maybe i was being silly for hating it because it was huge and cumbersome and smelled like it was offgassing at a fantastic rate. so i brought it back up (again with the sweating) and put it back together again, which was easier the second time. and sheez, it was huge. monstrous even.

the next day i put on cole's helmet and we manoueuvered the thing down to the bike room in our parking garage. i got to our bikes only to discover that someone had decided they were apparently up for grabs and put their own kryptonite bike lock on them. um - i know the tires were flat and we hadn't moved them in the year and a half since we moved here because we were pregnant and then had a baby and all - but why would you, someone, think they were abandoned and have chosen to claim them for your own?

discouraged by fact that i couldn't get my bike out at all, and realizing that yes, i really, really hated the thing, we rolled back to the elevator, nearly taking out a couple on our way in. the guys we ran down were all "woah - that thing is huge!" and "you could use it as a tent!", confirming that i was not alone in thinking it was of monstrous dimesions... once upstairs we took it apart again and gladly dumped off at canadian tire for a refund. in hindsight i'm glad a trailer didn't work out, since it seemed too disconnected for cole, who likes to be in the thick of things and interacting, rather than chugging along behind in a bubble.

but now what? i kept looking at other folks bike trailers and noticed that even the crazy expensive model was enormous. so i checked out child seats and we found a front-mounted seat that looked like a blast. dutifully i traipsed over to more than one place (since the first place needed to work on keeping their online stock up-to-date) and picked it up. easy - and a third of the price of the crappy trailer!

before we could try it out, we had to figure out how to remove someone else's unremoveable bike lock from our bikes. thankfully, my father in law is a swell guy who happens to be very, very handy. he brought down his tools (the kind you have when you don't live in an apartment!) and was planning on cutting the lock off for us. well, why cut off a bike lock when you can just guess at the combination? yes, he guessed and guessed correctly... not 1-2-3-4 or anything either - apparently he has a little known skill of lock cracking!

now, the flat tires. i was planning to walk the bike the five blocks or so to the gas station to pump up the tires, but apparently i didn't know we own a pump. jamie pumped up our tires and got to the business of attaching the new bike seat. hooray! helmets taken downstairs again. excited baby attached to baby-toting apparatus. adorable! hooray! and then... i couldn't get on the bike. the front seat attaches itself with a bar between your handlebars and the seat and i have a ladies bike which means i get on over the low bar... i actually can't disengage my leg from my hip in a way that would allow me to throw a leg over my seat. and even with help i could get on but not touch the ground. oh, and hey - why not have an excited baby wearing a helmet keep headbutting you in the chest? off thing number 2 came. back into the box with all it's loose bolts and promises of biking freedom. back to the store with it.

and on to three more stores in search of a rear-mounted baby seat. did you ever realize how many bike stores there are on broadway? a lot. cole and i got in and out of a couple stores and he learned the word "helmet" all on his own along the way (he says "ham-maa"). at different bikes we finally found the type we were looking for - you know, one that seems of good quality since your precious baby will be strapped to the back of your bicycle. except that the bike dudes couldn't find the rack that comes with it and attaches the seat to the bike. much to my consternation (otherwise known as i must have seemed like a bedraggled, grouchy mess since i was all sweaty and we'd been to three stores and by now cole was leaning backwards and poking me in the eyes) i had to order one, which was supposed to come from toronto and take at least a week. fine. we left and took a trip to the beach which was fun and also sweaty but highly enjoyable.

the bike guy called back later that day and hooray - had found the rack. so in we went the next day and picked it up. are you thinking by now i'm done with this long tale? nearly, but not quite... i felt all industrious and went down to install thing number 3, armed with my minature tool set and good intentions and poorly written instructions. and was feeling good, grouping my screws in little piles and getting a handle on what was what, dropping nuts and thankfully finding them, making progress... except that my bike was the special circumstances type listed on the instructions that required you to remove the damn back wheel in order to attach the rack. f------- whooshing out of my mouth - picture it.

jamie saved the day. he brought the bike upstairs and did the rest. removed the wheel, attached the rack, reattached things that needed reattaching, secured things that needed securing. and at long, long, long last - we went for a bike ride last night.

marvelous. i love this bike seat - it's awesome and sturdy, simple and functional. cole loved it and he patted me on the butt and said "mama" as we rode. couldn't get much better than that. he does have to look at my derriere as we ride, but he seemed to enjoy himself a lot. and he got to wear his ham-maa.

Chugging along...

A very big thank-you to Jamie, guest blog poster extraordinaire, who kept the NaBloPoMo streak churning ever forward. I apparently need to give him a posting profile so folks don't suspect I've just suddenly gone off my rocker and started referring to myself in the third person, which I do around the house anyway, sadly. "Mama's going to get her coat on and then we're going out Cole!". Sing-song voice and third person = cuckoo whack-a-doo!

I am not so sure about the whole concept of posting every day. Or make that of having to post every day. I just don't have that much interesting grade-A material! But since I started, I have to finish. I would make an excellent drug addict, I think, since I am very all-or-nothing!

Anyway, feeling better today. Many slices of dry toast and nearly a whole two litre bottle of gingerale all to myself later, I am feeling less nauseous. I get that way when I get a migraine and man, yesterday's was a doozy. Glad that's done with! Jamie knows I feel miserable when I'm willing to go to bed at 7:30. Normally I fight bedtime like a toddler.

We had an easy day today - plans with a friend for coffee got derailed due to illness (hers - I'm fine now!) so I spent the morning lazily strolling around with Cole and stopping by the library. I figured that I should stop ordering so many things online in the middle of the night only to wonder why I don't have any money in the light of day... Hey - did you know the books at the library are free?!? ;-)

Can't wait to get a better look at Softies: Simple Instructions for 25 Plush Pals and see what I can make for Cole. Yay - more projects? I have a bunch of requests for plush toys and embroidery books that I had in my shopping cart at Amazon a few nights ago. I'm not patient and am more than willing to pay for books that I love, but I figured that I might as well test the titles all out first! There is that saying that you should be able to use at least two patterns in a book to justify buying it... I hope that the 'simple instructions' in this title is true - I like simple instructions. Perfect for my (baby-created) short attention span these days. The patterns are from 24 different artists from around the world and I must say that I love that whale.

Lazy Friday post...

We've had quite the random Friday...

But first, Cole is awesome. He is all for standing and trying it out every chance he gets. Check him out this evening:



I like how weird our living room looks in that video, like all our furniture is crammed into one corner. We're using a small, crazy 70's vinyl-covered ottoman that I've meant to reupholster for a really long time as a coffee table so that Cole doesn't bonk his head on the real one, I keep squishing it between the chair and the couch to block off more pointy corners and I got all my fabric in big IKEA tubs out of the closet for my project the other day and am using it to block the fireplace so Cole can't scratch at the chain curtains. Ahh - so cluttered in here!

Anyway, (more) long rambling to follow. I think I pinched a nerve in my lower back yesterday while hovering over Cole trying to dress him as he tried to get away, so I've spent today lurching around like a zombie, trying not to twist or bend. I seem to need to do that a lot... I'm sitting gingerly as we speak. Ow, ow, ow. It's probably a good thing that playdate plans got rescheduled (hope little C feels better soon!) because I really doubt that I could have kept a handle on Cole in a wide open space with my current range of mobility!

But what to do with the day now that we had no plans? I wanted to take Cole swimming but was afraid that my back would seize up in the pool and then what would become of us? Ruled out walking because of pant issues (more on that later) and back pain. So we took the car up to West Vancouver to do a little shopping at Whole Foods and Michaels (had to get my hands on some of these awesome Christmas stamps for I don't know what reason).

Also had to return the most adorable pajamas that I got for Cole recently. When I put them on him we noticed that they were a little on the small side, although they were 6-12 months size. When I took a second look at them on, I realized they were for a girl! The cute puckered shoulders gave it away. I would have kept them anyway if they fit, but two strikes means a return in my book.

Speaking of clothes, I really need some new ones, evidently. The other day I walked through some dog poop and it got on the bottom of my favourite comfy jeans. Yesterday in the rain I wore my back up jeans and got them all soaked and gravelly in the rain. I tossed them both in the wash very diligently, but realized as I went to get dressed right before we were leaving today that I forgot to turn on the dryer... Faced with wet pants, I went to the closet. I should state that I have many pairs of jeans and other pants too, but none of them fit. Still have like 15 baby pounds to lose... The only other jeans that fit haven't been hemmed and are like six inches too long. Who do they make pants for? I'm 5'5 and a normal height among all the women I know. I have enough skirts to get me to Christmas eve without wearing doubles, but I figured then I'd have to search around for tights from two years ago, since last winter's maternity tights all went in the trash. So what choices was I left with? White or camo capri pants, the rattiest pair of sweatpants that I wear when the others are in the laundry or maternity dress pants. Yeah, I chose the latter... At least with a coat on they looked nice, but weirdly nice for walking around with a baby in the middle of the day. And even if noone else knew they were maternity pants, I did...