professional high meets personal low.

let me start by saying that marcus and i are super lucky that his dad lives ten minutes [in.traffic.] away. it means that on sundays they get a few hours of one on one while i do my distance run. it means that in a pinch, they can spin over here for blanky and puppy if we forgot one of the dynamo duo on a wednesday night. it means that it is very convenient for us to coordinate through the week with ease and flexibility while being respectful of each other's boundaries and space. it also means that one morning a week we get together to have a parental touch base and talk progress on the potty training and all things organic and good.

but since i started this single mom gig, one thing i am happy to give myself credit for is being able to juggle working A.LOT. of hours in a day [flex hours don't mean less hours. they mean long nights after the pint-sized organic toddler is sound asleep and starting your office work at 6:30 am so you can make the rest of life fit in between] and being able to give marcus all of the love and support and encouragement on the daily that most kids get from TWO full-time parents. i seem to [dear.god.knock.on.wood] be doing okay with it all thanks to my blessing of ocd and the newfound flexibility of being a 'runner' instead of having to fit scheduled fitness classes into my days. anyways.

whether you have one ft parent, two ft parents, or more [weird but i don't judge] - once that tiny being comes out and opens your ability to love to an entirely new level, life is a colourful + wonderful juggling act. did i ever tell you about the time i got totally dogged into being a juggler's assistant on a cruise ship near honduras? swear. i have the medal to prove it.

i found this article on forbes and totally found it inspiring, smart + well written.

i hope you enjoy it - i totally did:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/samanthaettus/2012/03/15/working-moms-nightmare/

-kare

one saturday morning.

today was the win of all saturday morning wins.
okay. i could be exaggerating. i could just be very excited about my antiquing adventure. aka the time i was driving to marcus' soccer practice and then saw [be still my heart] a garage sale [first one of the year] that appeared to be lush with industrial style goodies that may or may not have fallen off of the back of a distillery district truck.

the only thing better than finding the perfect touches for your place is finding them at a fancy oakville garage sale :)

voila: our saturday morning goodies!

antique newspaper stand aka new addition to our reading nook

breaking it in.

old school coca cola crate aka dvd bin.

vintage tonka weenew. the ladder goes up taller than marcus. he squeed in delight.
the best part? this little bad boy was free.

a tiny little rocking chair for a tiny toddler bum.

 i literally came home and spent all of eternity aka naptime scrubbing each piece from top to bottom with heavy duty cleaners. but not before i sat in underground parking, with an entire nissan not-so-hybrid rogue full of exciting finds and no strong man to carry it all up to the third floor. count that part as a single mom fail. but alas, it all made it upstairs. and it is all cleaned and perfectly paint-chipped exactly the way my heart desires.

plus we did a few other rad things today:

1. breakfast looked like this:

2. amazing soccer practice. and re-enrolled for the next session.
3. sweet afternoon with aunty laura, cousin grady, grandmama and papa scott. we did a brief lap of the home show downtown then scooted the fam over to the lonestar for tortilla chips, guacemole & quesadillas wearing matching green skinnies in hon of st patricks day.
4. marcus sat in a booth at the lonestar for over two hours. toddler victory. single mom victory.
5. we came home and the child went number two in the potty again! with no help at all and no prompting what.so.ever.
6. i worked on my painting. it's neon. i'm afraid i might not sleep through the night once it's finished and hung above my bed. just saying.

hope you had an awesome saturday!

-karen

santa vs. noah: the ultimate match up.

so i've mentioned a number of times [pretty subtly i would think] that i have some pretty strong faith going on. i tend to keep a lot of that man.upstairs. stuff on the DL or at least save it for my significant late night phone dates. but truth? i went to a sweet little catholic school and thanks to the goodness of holy cross combined with being raised in the one and only honest-to-goodness burritt's rapids christ church, i still remember so many important bible lessons. i don't think faith should have boundaries - heck, the catholic church slammed the door in my face for having a baby! - but it is something that far exceeds the four walls of the building you 'practice' in. infact, i think the more important practice is what comes outside of the four walls.

so. i started reading to marcus from his toddler bible[s] during bathtime. it's a great time to have his attention, a fun time to read to him, and it's our little quiet[ish] break before we settle in for the night. he.loves.it. his fave stories so far are obv the ones with fishing in them, or the first story from genesis of the days of creation. he loves adam and eve, altho he confuses the names and calls adam eden. i laugh and try to help him remember everytime. it has totally become something we look forward to everyday, and i try to balance it out with leading by example and doing our own prayers before bed too. so far, so good.

a few nights ago, we were reading noah's ark and marcus saw the illustrations and was just so excited. "mommy wait! i can read dis one. i know dis one":

"dis is god's friend santa. and, santa is coming to town. and, he knows if you are good. or bad. and he brings presents and he is coming. the end."

clearly we have some work to do.

cute kid though right? ;)

-kare

one sunday morning.

thank you g.o.d. for marcus sleeping until the solid 7 am mark this morning.

i of course woke up at 6:40 in mere anticipation of his morning yelp 'mommy! i awake! and i gotta pee!'
but to no avail.

so instead i stayed under the covers, gave myself a pat on the tired back for my freshly assembled ikea bed frame surviving a single night [phewf.] and enjoyed the morning stillness in our home. can i take a minute to mention that one of my customers asked over the weekend if i had yet christened my new condo? and i stood there and just started laughing because i didn't dare respond and thank.you.god. that i didn't because he started laughing too and said 'WITH WINE?!'. funny times.

back to sunday morning: he woke up and asked immediately for applesauce pancakes. have you ever done that? i mix organic apple cinnamon sauce into the [out of the box i suck but you can still love me] organic pancakes and it gives them a nice spin on the traditional. so we got down to business and made that happen.

then i looked outside and noticed it looked chilly - yea - but also was beautiful and sunny. so we bundled up and went on a bike ride over to starbucks across the street. that is a great little ride for those two-year-and-six-month-old-little-but-still-strong-legs. so away we rode:

we rode to starbucks and marcus parked his chopper inside near the entrance and marched over and ordered himself a blueberry muffin. in this tiny little voice and the barista was leaned over the counter trying to take him seriously and trying even harder not to keel over laughing.

then when he had nibbled away at only the muffin top and not the bottom goodness, off we went again for more biking:

we totally lucked out and spotted two forklifts, one mini crane, and three diggers at the construction site [our hood is not even built yet. the buildings next to us are still in the making which makes for awesome evening walks and morning bike ride entertainment]. clearly, once we stopped at the fence, marcus asked to shove his tiny mouth full of more muffin goodness:

which easily ended up being my favourite photo of our weekend.

i heard we were getting the most epic snow storm of the season on friday, but somehow we ended up with beautiful sunshine and clear roads today instead. we'll take it. gladly.

count it ;)

-kare