The Things You Learn...About Yourself

It's amazing what you can learn when you pay attention. Mostly I have learned how important it is to pay attention in the first place, that's a big one. When, by the third hour of almost non-stop colouring I am no longer in the mauvealous mood, I remember how short this time will be with her, how fast she is already growing and learning. It is surprising how easily she is leaving behind 'baby' words - like the 'emp-no' (empty) of yore and beginning to make full-fledged sentences. I was playing the 'Yummiland' movie the other day (I play Mindy Mint Chocolate Chip) and Nahanni clearly was not interested. She grabbed the remote and began furiously pressing buttons whilst repeating 'Turn off it. Movie. Turn off it'. I guess I know why we haven't gone to series...

I've learned that I'm torn somewhere between a near absence of ambition, a sort of self/motherhood imposed film industry vacuum and the voracious drive that lead me on in the old days. I'm attending the Red Carpet ET Canada festivities to close the Vancouver International Film Festival tomorrow night and when I learned that I hadn't been invited to another one last night for a company I have done a lot of work with, I felt...peeved, annoyed, heck, maybe even a little petulantly left out. That's a bit of a switch. I'm certainly out of the red carpet loop and I feel it, and I wonder how it will feel to do all that rigamarole again. I am looking forward to wearing a smashing red dress, that I will admit. And don't even talk to me about the shoes -- yum! Nothing says 'I'm back!' like a red stiletto.

As for mommyland, it continues to groove along and now that I have had a short reprieve from single parenthood while Ez has been between gigs I am enjoying it as always. Nahanni is smart as a whip, increasingly funny and a general joy to be around. I love to be with her and I pine for the days, not long ago, when when she was so small and vulnerable and new in my arms, seemingly mine alone. There is a certain romance to a new baby in your arms, a cloud of it descends upon you when you smell their small heads, their sweet breath warm against your neck. But like a summer dalliance or a shatteringly good vacation, it so quickly becomes but a foggy memory, it is almost cruel.

The new neighbourhood is taking me some time to get used to. I keep feeling somewhat shocked - some glaring thing will remind me that I am not in Kansas, er... North Vancouver anymore. The grocery store is a torrent of people, more intimidating even than the aggressive French mega store Carrefour. I am infinitely annoyed that they sell almost no organic produce whatsoever and I must remind myself that this is a different 'hood altogether - much more humbly working class and, I am discovering, predominantly ethnic. Ez says he feels much more at home here than "hoity-toity" North Van where he always felt somehow...lower than the standard. As for me, I consider myself to be a worldy person, vastly interested in the cultures of the world, their foods, their languages etc., but I have to jarringly admit, I felt myself somewhat caught off-guard when I took Nahanni to a Babytales hour at the new (to us) library. Of the 20-odd kids there (and their parents, grandparents and nannies) all but Nahanni and one other little girl were Asian - and it kind of threw me off. I guess I got so used to North Vancouver, that bastion of white upwardly mobile society - I never realized it. And I wondered why I felt unsettled by it - I wondered if they were all Spanish, say, would I have felt like that? I think that I feel disoriented when all the signs are in Mandarin or Cantonese, the magazines on the racks, the foremost book cases. I think because it feels inaccessible to me in a way that Spanish or Italian or French does not feel - I can muddle my way through any of them, but Chinese simply escapes me. And I suppose, the tables are somewhat turned on this white girl from Southern Ontario when suddenly I find myself to be the visible minority. And I chuckle when I think that my daughter is actually one-quarter Asian herself - though one would likely not know that to look at her [except other 'hapas' or mothers of 'hapas' who can always spot a child of mixed race].

We are loving the house though, its location is great for our needs, the house is warm, cozy and spacious at the same time. We had a huge housewarming party last weekend and though it was certainly a bummer that it rained, thus forcing us inside in droves of screaming children and jostling adults it was a wonderful time. There are so many dreams in life - travel, exploration, knowledge, and yet, one simple little thing - to own your own house in this city - there's something there that is also very, very satisfying. I suppose it is easy to mock it as plebeian, the whole middle-age get a house and have some kids thing, but really, it is some of the most rewarding time I have ever had...

Till the next adventure I guess. There's always another one with us.

It's the Little Things

There are so many moments when I find myself shuffling through words, trying to deal a hand that adequately describes a wondrous moment in this experience. But how to describe the singular joy of sitting in your own [hard-won] backyard in the glorious September sunshine while your lovely daughter romps naked in the grass, her little round cheeks popping in and out of the pool, her face obscured by a wide purple sun hat? The small joys of her holding out her hand to you to help her navigate the steep stairs - the first of her young life. All these moments which I am trying to tuck away and remember because I can see already how they so quickly turn into thin memories, mere shadows of the real experiences.

Nahanni continues to grow and flourish and her capacity for learning astounds me daily. Her grasp of language, her ability to wrap her little tongue around even the most difficult sounds is yet another of the wonders of this stage of life. She is proving to be very adept at language and plucks words from her brain like rabbits from a hat - they are that magical. She moved rapidly from the early words I was so impressed by and has largely left her signing behind in the wake of the myriad new words she has gained. The other day while running around the yard ('gwass!') she held up a fallen leaf and exclaimed 'Leaf! Hoja! Tree!' - and she continues to pick up words in French and Spanish both. She has even begun the rudiments of sentences and is able to repeat things you say days after you've done so. One of her new favourites is 'Do that! Carpet! No! No, no no! Cat!' - which is basically me yelling at the cats to stop ripping at the carpets. She works hard on her words, correcting herself until her little tongue massages the 'L' back into little, or sleep. I can tell she loves to speak, it thrills her to communicate.

She has developed a great fondness for the creatures that inhabit the yard and is particularly interested in spiders. Only a week ago she would call out 'PI-lo!' which was so cute - we still find ourselves randomly calling it out the way she did. It has already morphed into 'Pider' and she also now says 'web' and blows into the air, copying the way I always blow into the webs to see if the spider is alive or dead. The other day Ez heard her approach 'Daddy! Piller!' and she was holding a terrified little caterpillar in her outstretched hand. We are trying to foster a confidence in her when it comes to the creepy crawlies that are inevitable parts of the outdoors and she is remarkably at ease with them - even the yellow-jackets we can't seem to get rid of. She will say 'hurt you!?' and we say no, that they will leave her alone if she leaves them and so she doesn't panic when they buzz around her.

It is a wonderful thing to go into her bedroom in the morning to hear what words will be the first to open the torrent that continues throughout the day. After the recent spate of falling and bloody lips we gave her a popsicle (and do you know how hard it is to find real fruit popsicles?) she latched onto both the word and the treat and for days it was the first word out of her mouth in the morning - although that first day I walked in and she said this: "Taco. [what!?] Paco. Pocklo. Poklico. Popsliko." I mean, she worked hard on that one!

It has been a trial, coming to own this house, but oh, what a wondrous thing it is to have a home! We marvel at it daily, this mansion of ours (after 6 years in 726 square feet it is a mansion). We even climbed up onto the roof to survey our little kingdom, with its gorgeous maple and magnolia trees sweeping romantically across the front path, and our own apple tree scattering fruit across our yard. Every night we build a beautiful fire in the hearth and I step out at dusk each evening to sneak across the street and stare at it. I love the romance of the front yard, the way the trees arch over the path and dapple across the lights - it truly looks like the most romantic and mysterious little place. I love the newly painted red door and mailbox, the crazy sign the previous owner made on the lawn that lights up our address in the night (one of many quirky little oddities that drew us to this house). I love the smell of cedar burning in the hearth, that heady, woody scent we used to only get on our camping adventures. And there is nothing quite like entering into the great room, with its high vaulted ceiling and the great Indian mantlepiece, red candles flickering everywhere. It is especially welcome after the clinical (and clinically depressing) whitewalls of the recent open house nightmare. I hadn't realized how much personality had been sucked out of our living space until I began to put it back into this one. What glory to live in colour again! For me, colour is bliss...

I love watching my child learn and explore here. I feel genuinely blessed to have a real home for her, a real yard. I love the quirks of this strange and unique home and it is a great relief after the trauma of buying it that we love it as we hoped. I love that my daughter is learning to walk on those red-hued stairs, awash in the slatted light that falls from the Chinese-style back door. I love watching her 'hiding!' in the branches of our very own willow tree. It is the right home for us - interesting, unique - and far from perfect. We feel very lucky indeed.