My Weekend (with many links! (and parentheses!))

My weekend in Vancouver was fantastic. On Friday evening, after dropping Chris off at UBC, I met up with my hosts, the newlyweds Shawn and Nicole, and we drove downtown to see Tarkin's very last ever public gig *sniff*. I was curious to see how Gwen would do at a (coffeehouse) music performance - she slept through just about all of it, which was perfect. Somewhere around 10pm, while I was chatting with various friends outside the coffeehouse and listening to the closing band, I realized I was out of the house! at night! with grownups! not talking about my baby! It was great :-D

Gwen woke slightly when we put her in the carseat for the drive back to Nicole's, then got a diaper change and feeding and tucked into bed, where she slept for a good 5-6 hours. Ah, bliss!

On Saturday, after a nerve-wracking introduction between my tiny baby and Nicole's gigantic dog, I drove out to Richmond (on my own! no navigator!) to visit an old friend, Amanda, with whom I've recently reconnected (yay Facebook!). She has a three-year-old son and, at the time of my visit, a three-day-old son. We sat and nursed together and caught up a bit. It was entirely lovely.

In the afternoon, I drove back to downtown to attend Rachael's Blessingway, which was a real treat. I think Vanessa did a great job, and I really enjoyed hanging out with the other mommies. For example, this weekend I learned that there are such things as reusable baby wipes! I'd just been using baby facecloths, but since I can't wet those when I'm out, I have disposable wipes in my diaper bag. THEN I overheard Mouse talking about premoistening actual reusable wipes and putting them in a flat pack in the diaper bag. How brilliant! Now I just have to track down a local source - I'm hoping Dream With Me will have them, since they stock Bummis cloth diapers.

On Saturday evening, Sheila and Kat came over to Nicole's for a visit, and Nicole made a delicious spagetti dinner and fruit cobbler. Not that I usually blog about what I eat, but having something that wasn't reheated from the freezer was a rare thrill, and Nicole is a terrific cook! She is hoping to come over later this month and put even more meals in my freezer, which is much appreciated, since I feel approximately the same about cooking after baby as I do about sex after baby: I know I used to enjoy it, and I imagine in a theoretical way that someday I will again, but at this point I can't begin to wrap my head around how it could possibly fit into my life.

On Sunday morning I managed to get over to my aunt's house for a short visit and to drop off some items for the rest of my family, who are all going to be there next weekend: a birthday present for my nephew Scott, a Father's Day present for my dad. After a quick nurse we were back on the road again, out to UBC to meet up with Chris and watch his grading (he passed - he is now a fourth degree black belt in Iaido).

Because the Duke Point - Tssawassen route was HALF PRICE, we drove out there to take the next boat, although this resulted in us not getting home until 11pm. Lesson learned: take a bottle of breastmilk on the ferry, because when you are nursing the baby in the car and the announcement comes on to tell you the boat is about to dock, and you interrupt the baby's feed to strap her into the carseat and then wait for another FIFTEEN MINUTES for the docking, you don't want to listen to the hungry baby crying. No, you want to feed her a damn bottle.

So, that was the weekend. In addition to the 'take a bottle on the ferry' lesson, I also learned that while getting out of the house with the baby requires a lot more planning than just sitting around at home, it's really worth the hassle, because the 12 hours of daily nursing is just a whole lot more interesting when you have people to chat with and new walls to stare at.

On that note, holy moly have Gwen and I got a busy week ahead. Today was/is mostly recovering from the weekend; unpacking, doing laundry, getting a few groceries, and getting organized, all packed in around the usual nursing-and-changing-and-burping episodes. Then:

Tuesday: the usual Healthy Beginnings drop-in at the Health Unit.
Wednesday: Grandma time, then a session with my yoga instructor (with Gwen) to learn how to do yoga stretches with a babe in arms.
Thursday: the usual weekly appointment with Lillian (yes, we're still under the care of a midwife, because she wants to be 100% sure that Gwen's weight gain is sufficient before setting us loose). Then a lunch in our honour with my co-workers and a trip to the beach with Amber and her kids.
Friday: I'm getting a massage while Chris takes care of Gwen. Woot!*

Ooh, and the other cool thing that happened this weekend: I don't know if it's because of being in new places and seeing so many new people, or just her developmental timing, but Gwen is really recognizing me now, in very visible (though not always positive!) ways. I have been marked as 'hers', which is pretty exciting.

I will say that today has been a bit of a rude awakening as I am now back on my couch, staring at my four walls, with no company to distract or amuse me save the very cute but crappy conversationalist Gwen. We did get out for a brief walk this morning to the grocery store, for which I am grateful, but other than that it's just me and her and the long list of chores. After such a fun and diversionary weekend, it's a bit of a letdown.

*After a lot of soul-searching and a fair bit of perspective offered by various friends, I realized I need to give Gwen to her dad a bit more often - not only for my own sanity, but for the sake of him bonding with her and getting more confident, and for Gwen to realize that I am not the be-all and end-all of her world. It feels bad to ask for that sometimes, because it feels like I'm saying I don't love her or don't want to be with her. But after I realized that even if Chris took her for four solid hours every day, he would still be spending less than a quarter of what I spend with her.