The true test

After 5 months of having both parents at home, John is returning to work tomorrow. Maya won't know what's happening as much as I will but it will be an adjustment for both of us. I've been so priviledged to be able to evenly co-parent since we came home from China. Now, I'm going to have to parent full-time from 7:30am to 6:30pm 5 days a week! For those of you already doing this and/or doing it with multiple kids, I'm sure you're laughing right now. But for me, this is quite intimidating! Gone are the days that I can meet girlfriends for lunch or go out shopping alone while John looks after Maya. I'm going to have to do these things with her now.... Yikes! The irony of the situation is also not lost on me - I'll finally have the money to shop but will no longer have the freedom to do so... Crap.

Vaccinations

Maya was due for her 2nd set of vaccinations today. She took them MUCH better than she did the first time around. Once the shots were done and a cracker was offered, the crying subsided rather quickly. If only that worked as well on me!

Swimming Lessons

After seeing how well Maya took to the water on our first outing, we figured that we had better get this girl in to the water on a regular basis - and not the bathtub kind of water. So, I enrolled her in swim classes. Every Wednesday and Friday mornings, we head over to Killarney pool for DUCK swimming classes. Our girl is a natural and only hesitates when we're trying to get her to do back floats. Otherwise, she's all over the stuff. She's even jumped in the pool on her own a few times. There's a lesson to be had for this one as she jumped in when John wasn't looking. A bit of a shock for both of them! Now, she'll only do it if she has at least one of our hands so that's a good thing. Maya already can do everything in the water that is requested of her so the class is meant more for socialization and a regular pool visit. I'll have to refresh myself on the course requirements so I can keep on top of things.

Pearl Jam

I got a call from one of my girlfriends this week. She got 2 tickets for her corporate booth to the Pearl Jam concert and wanted to know if I'd go with her. Uh, YAH!!!! Woo Hoo! Girls night out, a concert, corporate booth, Pearl Jam!

The concert was last night and we had a nice dinner, a few pitchers of cocktails with dinner (I think) and then went to the stadium for the show. The concert was great and the band was quite a class act.

I figured that I was pretty lucky to be at this concert and that it was pretty cool to be at an age where my friends have access to stuff like this. I was feeling pretty good about myself. However, the other box attendees included 50-something people and their tween kids. Was I a hip mom or a relic trying to relive part of my youth? By nights end, I still wasn't sure but we had a great time anyway...

More Videos

Johns been working hard and has posted a couple more 'weekly' videos of Maya's adventures on YouTube. Check them out...

He has also been working very hard on creating a video from our trip to China. All of the videos & still shots taken before & during our China trip have been edited and clipped together, without music this time, as a memory of the trip. This DVD is meant to be both a memory for us and a keepsake for Maya to watch when she's older. I'm in the process of watching the whole thing, start to finish. I believe its somewhere between 5 & 6 hours long! Whew! That's a LOT of glasses of wine!

I'll be IN the 2010 Olympics!!

Not in the way you think though... I'm going to be a 'performer' in the opening ceremonies! Many months ago VANOC had an audition call for people wanting to be in the opening, closing or medal award ceremonies. I thought the audition would be something interesting to do, even if I didn't get chosen as a performer. I filled out my on-line application and waited. I got the call to audition as a dancer first as I had 'implied' that I could dance... a bit. I went, had a fun time and left assuming that I'd likely not get chosen. Weeks later, I was contacted again to audition for roller-blading. Something I can do quite well... forward, in a straight line as long as its not too fast, bumpy or hilly. I went, had a fun time and left assuming that I'd LIKELY get chosen. The audition only required me to skate to a beat, in line with other skaters. My YEARS of precision skating had CERTAINLY prepared me for that! Sure enough, I got chosen for roller-blading. Yipee!

I don't know much about it yet. The Canadian fashion designers D2 are doing the costumes, practices start Dec 20 (only 6 weeks of practice means that it WON'T be a hard routine!) and, no, I don't get free tickets or the chance to stay and watch. But I'll be there!

Photo Session

After several mis-steps and rescheduled appointments, I finally got around to getting Maya to the photographer for some pictures. She surprised us and got over her fear of the photographer very quickly. She loved the attention and completely hammed it up. What a star we have! The result was 25 great photos - 25! Way more than they're used to getting and more than we were prepared to choose from. So, we bought digital copies of them all! Check out the side-bar to see a few of them... Unfortunately, the right side of each photo is cut off so they look a bit off-side.