Oooooolivia

This morning Olivia tried cheerios as finger food for the first time. She held the cheerio between her fingers and looked at it from every possible angle before finally testing it out and she loved it! Another first... I have been cutting bananas into impossibly small peices for about a week and leaving them on Olivia's high chair tray to see if she would accept it as finger food. While she likes banana, it was just too slippery. This morning I had the bright idea, what if I coat the tiny banana pieces in dry baby cereal before offering them to her and success. High five for ingenuity! She was able to pick them up, no problem and get them in her mouth.

In another note, I had an idea last night for a children's story about a little girl who always got hand-me-down shoes, but her mother made up great stories to go along with each pair that make the little girl excited to wear them. It's call Maisie and the Magical Shoes. So far I have 2 ideas for types of shoes and stories to go along with, sandals which belonged to an amazonian princess and winter boots that the child of a famous explorer wore while exploring the North Pole.

Mmmm Curry...

Curry Apple Beef... one of my own creations!

1 lb stewing beef
1 1/2 c water
1 tsp butter
3 apples
2 tbsp yellow curry powder
1-2 cloves of garlic
1/2 tsp sea salt
a pinch of cinnamon

Cube beef and brown in 1 tsp of butter for a about 4 mins. It doesn't need to be fully cooked as it will finish cooking as it stews. Add water. Peel and chop apples and add them to the pot. Bring to a boil for 15 mins. Turn it down to simmer and add the remained of the ingredients. Simmer for an hour.

I served this delectible creation with fragrant rice and steamed cauliflower that I tossed in butter and nutmeg.

Olivia tried an interesting baby food combo last night that even Phil liked! Sweet potatoe, avocado and banana puree. It sounds rather awful, but Olivia loved it, and it had a surprisingly enjoyable texture. It wasn't as well recieved as mashed peas (her all time favorite) but she still ate it.

WORDS

RESOLVE... I hate that word. I know I was rather cavalier with the use of that word in my last blog post. In fact, I even put it in the title. Today I am wondering where is the woman who started this blog? She was full of resolve. Her resolve was emblazoned across the title of her blog. Where is the resolved woman who wrote "With my own two hands... acknowledging the state of the world and my place in it, I have decided to take responsibility for my actions. With my own two hands I will change my life, I will change my attitude, and I will change the world." And what have I changed?

Perhaps not much.

But let this be said, I have been changed.

First of all, let me add a number 16 to my list of new year's resolutions. Rewrite my blog heading. It is rather lame and slightly naive. Second of all, let it be known that I have been changed by the most basic, yet epic moments of human development. The power of words is easy to underestimate. Yet, words have saved and slain, simultaneously changed the course of history and captured it in books. Today my little Olivia shared her first words with the world. The joy I had in that moment was this blissful combination of pride and awe. This tiny little being that I birthed into this world gained the ability to speak! Just seven months ago she was this tiny little creature clinging to me for life and now she is a slightly less tiny creature who can say two words, "Mama" and "Dada". I caught this moment on camera and have put it on facebook, my level of excitement was borderline embarrassing, but I am glad that my reaction is also on tape. If you haven't checked it out yet, go do it now!

Suffice to say, that this was one of those changing moments for me. The world is a great, complex and beautiful place worthy of saving once again...

Resolved

I have been milling over what I would like to resolve in 2011 and here is my list. Some are peculiar, some trivial and others will likely be on my list of New Year's resolutions for the next 20 years. So here goes...

1. Work to either change my habit of procrastinating or to accept it. I haven't decided yet.

2. Feed my family really well. This may seem a little odd, but I really think that eating well has an immense impact on our health, our overall enjoyment of life and the environment. As a part of this I will aim to try at least 2 new recipes a month and blog about them. I will also include some of the more enjoyable moments of Olivia's journey into the gastro world.

3. Write. I am working on a collection of short stories which currently consists of random scribbles on scrap paper and about 4 unfinished pieces. I hope to finish at least 5 stories this year, whether or not anything comes of them is entirely moot. I also want to blog and write at least one children's story. In addition I plan to write mroe cards and letters.

4. Enjoy the hell out of my last 4 months of maternity leave. I want to spend as much time as possible with my sweet little babe. Reading her stories, playing guitar for her, and generally loving her to bits! I want to keep on volunteering. I am currently working in the nursery at church, helping with worship services and working at the community thrift store.

5. Get out and do stuff. I want to be a member of my lovely little community of Didsbury.

6. Give my dreary blog a face lift.

7. Facebook less and face time more.

8. READ... and educate myself in general. It should be noted that so far I am doing a smashing job at this one. I read to Olivia almost every night and have renewed my love of children's literature.

9. Walk and cycle more.

10. Support local business as much as it is feasible to do so.

11. Play, listen too and enjoy music as much as I used too. This includes expanding my record collection by at least 3 records off of my must have list this year.

12. Grow something for my family. Last year I grew herbs, pumpkins, strawberries, peas, onions, and zuchinis. While my crop my a little stunted by the August snowfall (I ended up with teeny, tiny everything) it still made me feel like a woman of the earth to be able to grow my own food.

13. Get more involved in my church community.

14. Channel my inner domestic goddess again! I miss her!

15. Find some sort of employment that makes a difference in the world. A vocation where I can make the world a better place for at least one person, and also recieve a paycheck.

Changing Reality

For the writer of a blog that officially has only one follower I have and alarming measure of guilt for not writing since the middle of last year. Sigh. I have landed back on earth, once again, after a simultaneously dreamy and sleepless 6 months. 2010was quite a year in the Boucher household. We joyfully welcomed little Olivia into our family in July and have spent the last 6 months as parents, if you can believe that! Needless to say it has been a little hectic.

Before having Olivia, I so looked forward to my maternity leave, mostly because it meant our baby would finally be here with us, but also because I was excited to be, at least for one year, a stay at home wife and mother. Maternity leave has not exactly been what I expected, it has been full of joys, but also struggles. I am more than happy to be at home with my little girl, but I always had the comfort of knowing that I had a career, changing the world with a great organization and a comfortable salary to return too. Unfortunately that changed in November when, out the blue, I was fired. First of all, let me say this, not only it is illegal to fire a woman while she is on maternity leave, it is morally reprehensible. Apparently my job had become redundant, whatever that means.

Having a new baby put me into this strange emotional high. A bliss I had never experienced before in my life. I cried for joy on a daily basis (honestly I blame the happy breast feeding hormones). The world all the sudden became this great and amazing place where nothing bad could possibly happen because a child this great had entered it. Getting fired sort of burst that bubble. Oh right, bad things can happen.

I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't devastated about losing my job. And lying further if I didn't say my employer handled it badly and caused me much unnecessary hurt. But I am letting go, slowly. All this to say that my plans have changed out of necessity. I now live in this world of uncertainty. I have no idea where I will be when my maternity leave comes to an end. I really want to be excited about the possibility of change, and at times I truly am but being a parent brings this whole new and startling sense of responsibility. This is all part of my changing reality.

I hope a few months from now this experience becomes one of those delightful anecdotes that expound upon the adage "from everything bad comes something good."

Truthfully, I didn't intend for this blog entry to become a rant about getting fired, I still respect my former employer and the work that they do, I guess I just needed to vent. What a downer I have become. I intended this entry to be about my resolutions for changing myself and the world in 2011 and an overview of my amazing 2010. Perhaps I am not quite ready to let go of 2010... All of this venting and the midnight feedings have left me a little tired, give me some time, the resolutions will come.

Wishing you a year of peace and possibility!

Melissa

Self Absorbed

Oy, I just realised that I have not blogged in ages. Perhaps this is proof of the fact that I have been entirely self absorbed lately. Pregnancy does this to a woman, it draws her completely inward. I wonder if it is just preparation for the vow of selflessness she is about to take when she becomes a mother. There isn't a minute of the day when I am out of touch with my body. I am constantly rubbing my growing belly. Rubbing my swollen ankles. Obsessing over what my labour will be like. Will I ever come back down to earth?

2012

Carpe Diem for Eternity!

Now that I have officially been invited to join the Facebook group "2012 is not the end of the world" about a million times, I feel poised to comment. Many thought streams float through my brain as I contemplate the possibilities. Admittedly, I am in the full throngs of what the "What to Expect" books call 'baby brain' I find myself thinking, in my profound capability to string together words, if 2012 were the end of the world, would it really be the end of the world? Obviously a redundant sentence, of course the earthly realm that we identify with our physical senses would cease to exist, but what about the rest of it? Heaven, the mystic, even the social order of humanity. Even if humanity did not exist in a physical sense, surely all of these things that have no tangible physical construct would still be out there. But then that begs the question, if a tree falls in the woods and there is no one there to hear it, does it really make a sound? What good are ideas, social order, and religion if there is no one left to live them? What if the 'real world' has nothing to do with the world at all? So now I am left with a dilemma; to carpe dium or not carpe dium.

When I was a kid I really struggled with the division of reality, constructed reality (TV, social constructions) and my active dream and play world. At about 7 I remember facing real crises that I could not articulate to any of the grown ups in my life about whether or not the situations I was facing were a dream, a constructed reality or actual reality. Figuring out the divide between real and imaginary is a natural part of growing up, but admittedly my life circumstances exasterbated a part of childhood that for most is a blip where they realize Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy are social constructions, not real beings. My neice Shae stayed with me this summer and I remember her asking on several occasions whether people, or things existed in the "really world" or not. For example, I remember her asking me if "Han-tana" short for Hannah Montana was a girl in the "really world" or not. When looking through some video's of a friend's vacation on Facebook there was one clip of a jellyfish that was completely see through, and she couldn't believe that the jellyfish was a part of the really world and Han-tana was not. The really world is a confusing place indeed.

I am thankful for this confusing time in my childhood, while I never held onto any irrational beliefs in fairytale characters, it certainly helped me to hold onto something that I think many people lose. I am really 2 Melissa's. The first Melissa is tied to the earth, going to work, baking cookies, blogging, and the other Melissa is somewhere in the clouds. Cloudy Melissa says, of course the real world has nothing to do with the world. I don't think I would be able to get up and face the world each day if I thought the world was just what I could see. Cloudy Melissa is living for eternity! Earthy Melissa is harder to persuade, she runs the show 90% of the time, rarely acknowledging the mystic, or imagination, but she does get to see nature and humanity in all of its beauty and spledor. Earthy Melissa wishes she'd seize the day more