what do you expect

I think a lot of the angst in life happens when people or events fail to meet our expectations. That means there are two ways to avoid this angst: either allow people or events to be a part of our lives only if we are sure that they will meet our expectations, or else alter or give up our expectations. Giving up expectations could also be interpreted as simply learning to accept the world as it is and on its own terms.

gotta do what you gotta do

For better or for worse, we are "crying it out" with Robin these days. It sure is hard to lie in bed listening to your baby cry her guts out because you aren't there, especially when you know that if you get up and go to her she'll calm right down, but we're really at the end of our rope with getting up all night. It was getting ridiculous -- some nights, Robin would wake up five or six times. We weaned her off night feedings first, so she was really just waking up out of habit, not because she needed anything (other than maybe having her soother put back in her mouth). She hasn't been waking up more than once or twice a night since we started letting her cry, so maybe she's getting better at soothing herself back to sleep. I hope.

I think she still likes us.

the system is breaking down again

Things have been such a yo-yo over the past few days. Andy's father, Reg, died last week. It was very sudden and unexpected; though he had some pretty severe limitations after the car accident last year and the subsequent complications, he was very stable from a medical point of view. His short-term memory was not very good and physically he was essentially limited to bed, though he did spend some time each day up in his chair. But his long-term memory was basically intact (he knew all of us and often talked about events prior to the accident) and he had regained quite a bit of the use of his right hand (he could feed himself and was able to use his remote control for his television).

Andy was visiting with Reg last Thursday. He had a good long visit and Reg gave Robin a raspberry as they were leaving. Nothing seemed unusual at that time. The staff served him his dinner (Andy had brought in some particular favourites), but when they returned about twenty minutes later, Reg had passed away. It's still not clear what happened; we may have some answers tomorrow.

It's been quite weird over the past few days. Sometimes we are going about the mundane things like laundry or putting gas in the car, feeling like it's a pretty ordinary day, and then bam, something happens that reminds us that things are not ordinary but rather very surreal and upside-down. It's very disorienting. Having kids around, both Lisa and Robin, has been a very normalizing force. Regardless of how odd it feels to do simple things like feeding the baby, it's got to be done. So you concentrate on that for a while and things sort of right themselves for a while.

There will be a memorial service this Wednesday at 7:00 at Thomson Funeral Chapel on Broadway. All are welcome to come.

why didn't we do this before?!

This is the River Trail's second winter. The River Trail is a path on the Assiniboine River that has been cleared of snow and flooded to make a skating path. It runs from The Forks downtown all the way to Omand Park at the west end of Wolseley; the plan is to extend it all the way to Assiniboine Park, which will make it 9 km long.

We went skating on the trail last weekend; it was a beautiful day and hundreds of people had the same idea. It was like a holiday; Andy called it "We Can Finally Go Outside Day." We bundled Robin up and put her in her stroller with a plastic cover to block the wind, and she was nice and toasty.

expanding horizons

Today we added avocado to Robin's arsenal. It didn't seem to be her favourite, but then she might just have been getting full. Next up: bananas! What baby doesn't like bananas?

It seems the best way to feed Robin in to strip her down to her diaper and then use a bib with a pocket at the bottom to catch everything. What a great invention.

impressive

We've started Robin on baby food. Tonight's menu consisted of a lovely rice cereal with a side of freshly steamed mashed carrots. (Okay, technically they were freshly steamed yesterday and then defrosted today.) I'm pretty sure she was thinking, "Oh, Mommy, you forgot something in my mouth! Here, I'll give it back! Oh! You did it again! Here you go!"

I didn't think she was really getting anything down, until she barfed up a whole lot of orange and white mush. Turns out quite a bit was actually swallowed after all! Even if it was temporary.

finally

For the first time in days, I want to go outside. It's been so hideously cold that any time spent outside has been for essential reasons only, and contained within layer upon layer of cold. It's become common to see people wearing ski goggles while out walking around to protect that tiny little bit of exposed flesh from the -40 windchills.

Yeah, so it's -40. This is Winnipeg in January, so surprise surprise, it's cold! But this winter has basically seemed like one long cold snap after another, since December was also unusually cold. Nice to finally get a break.

a victim of its own success

According to free-market proponents, competition is vital; it forces systems to become more efficient in order to survive. Without competition, systems become bloated and corrupted. So isn't it a bad sign that there hasn't been a serious alternative to capitalism since the end of the Cold War? (Some would argue since even before the end of the Cold War.)

what a great show

Aside from James Burke's leisure suit with the lapels that reach out way past his shoulders, Connections might be the best show I've ever seen. Did you know that the development of the stirrup for horses ended up leading to the development of the telephone?

whiny, whiny

Getting up once in the middle of the night is a drag, but not that bad. It's the second, third and occasionally the fourth trip out of bed that's really a pain. We're trying to cut down on the amount that Robin eats at night to try and get her to sleep longer. And we're going to be starting on "real" food in the next week or two. Fingers are crossed.

And I am NOT interested in hearing any stories about how this baby was sleeping through the night by two months, or that baby sleeps a solid twelve hours at a time.

a new approach

I'm going to try something new: posting a couple of sentences a day, sort of like updating my Facebook status. I'll post pictures occasionally (you can see more pics at on Flickr) but I think this might be better for actually getting me to update this "blog."

I am trying to learn more about football. I know the basics, but what happens on the line of scrimmage really just looks like a random mess to me, and I know there's a lot more to it than that. Wikipedia has been helpful with this.

Also, Blogger seems to have changed my blog "for" me. Does anybody who knows something about HTML know how I would get the blog posts column to be wider and the sidebar on the left to be narrower?