Thanks for stopping by!  Especially since I’ve been such a bad blog hostess.

Leaving you out here in the Internet hinterlands, with nothing new to read…  Yes, I’ll pretend that I have rabid fans.  I love self-delusion!  Friends, please allow me to extend my most sincere apologies.

Rest assured I have a REALLY GOOD REASON:

Meaning*, I’ve been taking a ton of pictures as part of  my glorious love affair with my camera.

* Not meaning that I’ve been busy BEING this really cool looking tree, hanging out ’til all hours with this super cool looking tree, or that this very cool looking tree has somehow prevented me from posting, by say suddenly crashing and breaking all my fingers or wreaking similar havoc on my ability to post.  But that would’ve been a pretty bad-ass thing to write about.

Seriously people, I’ve got it BAD.

Cuddles with my dear Canon EOS 30D. Tragically, this photo had to be taken with a drastically inferior camera. *sob*

To justify this love of ours, my camera and I decided that it would be an excellent idea to try to make some cheddar (Vancouver isn’t getting any cheaper – yowza!), or at the very least build up a portfolio that might help get me in the door to a Digital Media post-secondary program down the line.  Then the additional cheddar would come later.  With a fancy pants job that I would really love.

Could you even imagine???

I know, right?!?

Anyway, head on over and visit my new (and currently downright NAKED**) photo blog!

**Naked refers to lack of content, not actual naked pictures.  Sorry to disappoint you.

And while he babbles CONSTANTLY, he is not talking.

Conversing in Nemo-ese at the park.

He does throw out the occasional word, and is getting fairly consistent with “up.” He has an excellent sense of humour and love to laugh. He loves music, and is a whirling dervish who never sits still. He adores books and if he gets within 5 feet of one you’d better be prepared to read it to him. He eats and sleeps like a champ, and he loves to give hugs. He loves the water.

And he doesn’t talk.

We have been working on this for the past year.

We have done every single thing that every single professional has told us to do and MORE, and he doesn’t talk. We’ve had his hearing tested. We’ve joined Mother Goose, You Make the Difference,  and a playgroup for children in the Infant Development Program. I am on the waitlist for Nobody’s Perfect.  I have taken seminars that promise to teach me the things will have Nemo talking in mere weeks, only to find that I have been already doing those same things for the past year. I’ve tried Baby Sign Language. We are on the waiting list for a Speech Therapist.  Most of my free time is spent reading books on early language development. 

I am told on a regular basis that I am doing everything right.

And he doesn’t talk.

About a month ago, our consultant dropped the “A” bomb: autism. To be honest, I was almost relieved because I felt like everyone was tiptoeing around it for the past year.   Nemo had been dem0nstrating more and more “sensory-seeking” activities, like fixating on strings, lights or blades of grass.  Each time I googled it, I’d gotten smacked in the face with AUTISM WARNING SIGN!

But here’s the thing: Nemo doesn’t act autistic.

What do I mean by that? Well, he has eye-contact skills that would make a Toastmaster jealous. He smiles and giggles and laughs and fully engages with everyone around him.

"I'm gonna get you, Momma!"

Every “expert” looks at him and scratches their head, and sends me to someone else.

Well-meaning friends and family members assure us he’s fine, and remind us Einstein didn’t talk until he was 3.

Then one morning about three weeks ago, Nemo had a seizure. He’d had a stomach bug earlier in the week, and now I had it too. I called 911, and we were rushed to Eagle Ridge Hospital. While they were running blood tests (which had meant holding a very scared, very strong toddler down multiple times to take blood), Nemo had 4 more seizures, including one while he was sleeping. They gave him an anti-seizure medication and he was transferred to BC Children’s Hospital. Husband went with him, as the doctors decided I was too sick to hang around Children’s. I would have to wait until I recovered until I could see either of them.

Putting on a brave face in the ER at Eagle Ridge.

Nemo was placed in enteric isolation and they ran a battery of tests, all which came back negative. After a weekend in the hospital, all they could say that it was “likely” a complication of the flu, and said they could have been atypical febrile seizures. 

Atypical because he had no fever, and febrile seizures are convulsions brought on by a fever in infants or small children.  Am I the only who doesn’t get this?

But the Neurologist was very interested in a possible link to his developmental delays.  But nothing for certain.

Again, nothing for certain.   Always, it seems, nothing for certain.

So how does all of this make me feel?

Well.

Here’s me in a nutshell: I find new ways of doing things, I organize things, and I try to make things make sense. I take complicated problems and distil them into something simpler. I summarize, I simplify. I believe that there is a solution to every single problem and that if you look hard enough you will find it, and you can fix it.

Is Nemo broken? No. He is wonderfully and uniquely Nemo and I would not change a single thing about him. But I know that there is something that isn’t working the way it is supposed to, and no matter what I do I am not fixing it.

So yeah, sometimes I feel like shit. Like there is something out there that explains everything, but I am not looking hard enough. Even though I know I have run out of places to look.

But then I look at Nemo and he is just so GREAT.

Hanging out and generally being awesome.

So, I must be doing something right, right??

So I am trying to get to a place where I can be at peace with not having all the answers, where I can stop blaming myself, where I can accept that maybe this has nothing to do with me doing something WRONG.

It’s a work in progress.

Enter the CHOCOLATE QUINOA BROWNIE.

 
They are really close to perfect but next time I’ll add walnuts.  Or chocolate chips.  Oh, the possibilities are endless.

CHOCOLATE QUINOA BROWNIES
Pulled from here.

Ingredients
½ cup (125 mL) quinoa
¾ cup (175 mL) granulated sugar
½ cup (125 mL) cocoa powder
1 tsp (5 mL) baking powder
¼ cup (50 mL) 2% milk
2 tbsp (25 mL) canola oil
2 eggs
1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla

Instructions
1. In small saucepan, bring 1-1/2 cups (375 mL) water to a boil. Stir in quinoa. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand for 5 minutes. Fluff with fork. Transfer to bowl; cool to room temperature.
2. Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Spray 8-inch square (2 L) metal cake pan with cooking spray. (I used parchment paper.)
3. Place quinoa, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, milk, oil, eggs and vanilla in food processor. Process until smooth, about 1 minute. Pour into prepared pan.
4. Bake in centre of oven for 30 to 34 minutes or until tester inserted in centre comes out clean.
5. Cool in pan on rack. Cut into 9 squares. Serve dusted with icing sugar, if desired. (And eat far too many of them, since they are GOOD FOR YOU, right??)

BON APPETIT!

The GoCrib, by Guava Family. 

It fits into a backpack.  A BACKPACK, people!!

I intend on winning one through the Baby Half Off blog, but I’m not greedy. 

You can win one too!

This morning, Husband and I packed up Nemo, along with the vintage Christmas ornaments that belonged to my Nana.  They’ll soon be divvied up among my Dad and his two brothers, and I wanted to capture them for posterity – in case they just end up forgotten in a box somewhere. 

I’d been thinking about different ideas for a weeks now, and ended up deciding on shooting up at Buntzen Lake. 

Here are some of my favourites:

Husband was an excellent sport, masterfully wrangling Nemo while I shot:

"Did someone order a wiggly toddler?"

And Nemo NEARLY conceded to a few artsy shots….

"Hey Ma, what's with the crate?"

Once I was all done, Husband decided it was only right for me to get photographed too:

Making funny noises with Nemo

 Fair’s fair.  Happy Holidays!

Doing stuff like improvising a highly inappropriate Hallowe’en costume for Nemo for the 30th, since we were going to Van Dusen Gardens’ Jack O’ Lantern Spooky stroll, and I didn’t want to hoist him in and out of his “real” lion costume…

To make things worse, Elmo is Nemo’s new harness.  Yes, my kid has been leashed.  He’s a runner.

Selling, mind you.  Not buying.  And some of the first items to head to the chopping block were our sunloungers that we never use.  We bought them a few years back specifically for townhouse’s patio and they’ve never fit anywhere since.  (We move.  A lot.  We’re on our third place since then.)  So, I spent the better part of a morning making them presentable, before moving them into our driveway to dry in the sun.  Not terribly eager to have to repeat the job later, I ducked up the steps to our landlord’s place and asked if I could store them in the garage for a few days.

Can I just say we have the best landlords ever?  Truly, they are the sweetest.  Not only could I shanghai most of the available garage floorplace with my bulky loungers, Nat invited me in to check out some toys their girls (7 & 12) had outgrown: a toy kitchen and an adorable art desk.  Did I want the desk, and did I know of a little girl who would like the kitchen?

YES, and sort of…  I knew of a little BOY who would probably freaking *love* that kitchen: Nemo.  Since Nem was napping, I told Nat that we’d be up around dinner time to see if the kitchen tickled his fancy.  With Husband to do the heavy lifting.

I don’t remember Husband’s exact reaction when I told him about the kitchen, but it wasn’t terribly impressed.  I made a deal with him:  if Nem showed no interest in the kitchen, we’d pass it along to one of his (yes, probably girl) friends.  I think Husband may have been counting on our rough and tumble, car-obsessed little toddler passing right over the girly kitchen, but not so.  His eyes lit up as soon as he saw it, and made a beeline to open and close the cupboards and turn the knobs.

Yes, it would appear that our son would be getting a purple and pink play kitchen.

We moved it downstairs where I set it up in a corner of our kitchen, and Nemo was in there like a dirty shirt: opening/closing the microwave, opening/closing the oven, slamming around plates and chewing on pretend food.

Husband, half-joking: “If he turns out gay, I’m blaming this.”

At this point, my love of poking fun at Husband and playing with stickers collided…

Girly kitchen?  How about now?

What about this?

Is this better?

I really had far too much fun with this impromptu project.

And MY kitchen has gotten considerably more awesome since Nemo got his.

Nemo’s ultra-manly Cafe.  Now with free Wi-Fi.

Chief among these are these two happy campers:

A. Perfectionism.

B.  Procrastination.

Here is my hasty artist’s rendition using PowerPoint:

(Did I resist the urge to toy with that for hours until it was perfect?  YES.)

(Did I just scroll up and look at it and want to change it?  YES.)

You might think that perfectionism and procrastination wouldn’t necessary set up shop in the same individual, BUT they actually go together exceedingly well.

Not enough time to devote to achieving perfection?  Maybe tomorrow.  Or the next day.  Or…

It has meant that some of my best research papers have been written during the eleventh hour, while burning the candle at both ends.  Part of my problem is that I adore research.  To the the point where in order to write a 5 page report, I would find myself sorting through microfiche and sitting through filmstrip documentaries on the off-chance the glut of academic journals, books, and periodicals I had already consulted had missed something awesome of paramount importance.

So what have I been up to lately?

Basically, mentally writing blog posts over and over again, and then discarding them.

Writer’s Block.  Big Time.

Well, if motherhood has taught me anything, it is that I rarely have the time to indulge in either my perfectionism or procrastination anymore, so this post was my solution.

Consider me (forcibly) unblocked.

Here is a good one: 

C IS FOR COUSINS.

Wild-haired Nemo in his 70′s bowling shirt, playing with his cousins (March 2010).

Stay tuned for little known facts about April Wine, notes on vicarious small-town living, musings re: talking politics with Americans, my major crush on the Olympia, WA Farmers Market, what qualifies as “kid-friendly” yogurt in a U.S. grocery store, Husband’s long-awaited reunion with the Carl’s Jr Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger and other adventures in American fast food, and finally a bit about our surgical daycare experience at BC Childrens Hospital (hint, those folks are angels). 

In the meantime, here’s Nem’s narrow escape from my attempted capture of his ridiculous hospital gown cuteness: