Day 35 – A picture of your hometown

So, it's been awhile actually.  I actually got to this 'Day' and realized I didn't know what 'hometown' to put.  Do I put where I was born-Montreal, which is where I say I'm 'from' when people ask? I tell people that I was born in Montreal but raised in Quebec and Ontario.  Or do I put Brockville (or more precisely, half an hour outside Brockville) where I lived from age 10 til 25 when I started moving around the country.  Finally settling here in Calgary for the last 7 years.  

I decided to go with Brockville.  This is right off King Street.  You can't see it but I used to live up and to the left of this road.  

I can't see myself ever living in Ontario again, and certainly never living in Brockville.  It was okay while I lived there but now that I have explored this great country of ours, Brockville is just way too sleepy for me.

Day 34 – A picture of your favorite morning

Gotta love the mornings where I wake up before the baby. Doesn't happen often, unless I wake up at some ungodly hour and can't fall back to sleep. Those are unpleasant.

Day 33 – A picture of somewhere you went today

Woohoo for the Winter Festival in Mallorytown today. We (mom, Ricky and I) went and grabbed my niece Asha (Ricky's favorite first cousin) and headed to Mallorytown. We went first to the a Lizard Show, where mom was very good about not saying 'eww' or 'ick'--I warned her that that would be unacceptable behavior. The show was at my old Elementary School. I hadn't been in there in about 23 years I think. It's weird how it shrunk. I'm sure it used to be much bigger.

After the show we went and Asha got her face painted and then Ricky and I walked over to Purcell's Market to get a few goodies and mom and Asha drove over and met us. We took the 'long, scenic' route home in the hope of Ricky getting a longer nap. Nope, a whopping 7 minutes. Sigh.

We then kept Asha til after supper (Ricky and I managed to get a hour long nap later in the afternoon) and now again, it's 830, Ricky has been asleep for an hour and I'm off to get my evening beverage.

Day 32 – A picture of what you (we-Ricky and I) did today

So we had a busy busy day today. Lots of exciting going-on's.

Ricky went down for bed last night at 7:30PM and woke up at 2:15 for his middle-of-the-evening meal. Back to bed by 2:30AM and then he woke up at 6:30. I was not having any of that and brought him into bed with me to snuggle/sleep a bit longer. Out of bed at 8:30. Much better.



After getting Ricky fed some breakfast (he does so love his multi-grain cheerios) we popped across the hall so we could spend sometime with Poppa. Poppa is awesome with his namesake. Ricky likes to crawl over to Poppa's chair, pull himself up and stare at Poppa until he makes funny noises at him. And, of course, the 'play with the dentures' game that I'm sure all the Beck grandkids remember.

Ricky also loves spending time with his GrandMer. Here they are (a few days ago actually) looking out the window at the horses.

And now a trip into Brockville to drop Auntie Suey off at Angelo's overnight, lunch at the mall and then grocery shopping. Ricky had a blast in the sheep pen. I would pick him up, drop him in and he would wriggle his way towards the bottom of the box laughing hysterically.



Back to The Farm, naptime for everyone. Well, everyone except me. I enjoyed some nice solitude while the entire household napped. Nice.

And now suppertime. Mom and I picked up pizza in town so Ricky got some ground beef and rice. And his mixed veg 'wet-food' (I am amused by calling pureed baby food 'wet food'). The cats and dogs weren't sure about Ricky when we first got here but they quickly learned that under his chair is the place to be during mealtime. Or in the case of Baby Boy (Pong), on his tray is even better. Good thing Ricky likes to share.

And now it is almost 8:30PM and Ricky has been asleep for an hour. Life is exciting here at The Farm, early to bed early to rise and all that. Time for me to go have a beer!

Day 31 – A picture of food you made

Whooo-boy, do I suck at blogging. Due to a baby who got quite sick, followed by Mike and then I getting sick and then leaving on Tour de Ricky Part Deux, my blogging skills fell apart. My deepest apologies and I am getting much nagging about this from unexpected sources.

So today's blog is about a food that I made. Now many people seem to think that my baking skills are new and unusual. I have always enjoyed cooking but never did much of it when I was single, at least nothing fancy, as it is boring to cook for one. And when Mike and I started to live together it was just easier to let him do *most* of the cooking as he had some many 'food rules' (no microwaves, minimal preservatives, blah blah) that if he made it then he couldn't complain. And then we got in the habit of just making our own food and eating at different times a few times a week.

Since I've been on mat leave I find I now have the time (snort) to actually enjoy cooking again. And when my mom came and surprised my seester and myself with a visit in October she taught me how to make bread. Seriously, I make bread now. And not in a bread-maker. By hand, well sort of, with my Oster Kitchen Center. Which my mommy bought for me off Kijiji when she visited. Best. Mixer. Ever! His name is Oscar.

Ricky and I are visiting at The Farm right now and mom taught me how to make sausage rolls last week. I think we all know who is Poppa's favorite grandchild is now. Ahem. The person's name begins with a 'M' and ends with an 'egan'. I am hoping that I am able to keep up the baking once I return to work. At least I will have Friday, Saturdays or Sundays to do the baking.

Day 30 – A picture of your favorite quote

I'm scared of Zombies. The thought of them terrifies me. I do NOT watch any Zombie movies, even the 'funny' ones.


This quote is 100% true. I would trip each and everyone of you. That is, if I was 't too busy being huddled in a ball of slobbering fear..
I

Day 29 – A picture that can always make you smile

Mike is a very creative present wrapper. I have gotten presents wrapped like a pony (that one was the first present from him). Xmas present wrapped like Wall-E. Not only does Mike wrap the presents creatively but he also puts more than one present into the present. Every gift giving occasion, and I only make him celebrate Megan Day and Christmas, involves an very elaborate wrapping job by Mike.

This years xmas presents were wrapped up as a Trogan Penguin attacking a castle. That`s a cool wrap.

Day 28 – A picture of your favorite place in the world

So I was going to take a picture of my bed as I have been wanting to spend more time there this last week what with the evil plague sickness going through my house, but Mike is currently sleeping in it and I don't think he would be okay with me waking him up to 'stage' it. Since the deal is that he gets to sleep for a few more hours and then I get a nap, I'm not going to disturb him..


This is Poppa's Farm. Or, my parents place. We moved here when I was 11. I moved out when I was 18. I would never want to live there again (I'm not a country dweller) but I love to visit.
(I do realize this is a short crappy blog but I don't care. I am still very sick, and very whiny, and very tired and I just don't have the energy for extend-O-blog)

Day 27 – A picture of your favorite night

I believe this was the first night that we had Ricky home from the hospital. It was after our baby class and Mike managed to get a picture of Ricky, Puff, Chester and myself all sleeping at the same time.

Ricky finally being discharged from the hospital and being able to bring him home and finally start being parents all on our own was both awesome and scary. No more nurses to help me whenever I had a question, but on the plus side, no more doctors and interns coming into our room without knocking to do their rounds..

Day 26 – A picture of something that means a lot to you

This is a small amount of my family (circa early-to-mid 90's I think). My mom is the oldest of 11 which means I have many many aunts, uncles and cousins. I think at last count there was about 50 'immediate relatives'. Which doesn't include the various second cousins, great aunts and uncles and so on, who I'm also close with.

Its an amazing loving, crazy, good-hearted, nicely evil family I have and I love them all. My Poppa, Arthur Richard being the oldest and my son, Richard Arthur Michael being the youngest. I can't imagine having grown up in any other family.

We might all be all over the world now (from all over Canada, to the States, Thailand, Germany, soon to be Egypt and Korea) but we stay close with Facebook and Skype.

Day 25 – A picture of you from last year

Whoops, bad me. I forgot to do yesterday's blog. No real excuse either, got busy checking out the Weight Watchers site as I started WW yesterday.


This is me the middle of last March. So around 7 months pregnant. That little blond girl 'tickling Ricky' is Evannlee who is our former upstairs neighbour. She was very excited by the thought of Ricky and would ask me whenever she saw me (which was often, we were and are close) if Ricky had come out yet, and when would he be able to play with her already! Very cute.

Day 24 – A picture of someone you miss

Alrighty, I'll throw her a bone. I miss my seester. Duh.

Day 23 – A picture of your favorite book

Seriously, this is one of the funniest, well-written books I have ever read. If you are a real Canadian, or even know any Canadians then go out and buy this book. I couldn't stop laughing. In fact, I think I might go reread it for the 15th time.


Will Ferguson also has some other books but this is by far his best. Seriously, go read it.
Seriousl

Day 22 – A picture of something you never leave the house without

What? I love my phone! I bet most of you thought I would put a picture of Ricky up here didn't you? Well, the very first time I left Ricky at home (Mike was there as was Ricky's buddy Kayden and Kayden's dad Joe) was back in October and Michelle (Kayden's mom) and I drove up to the store to get some groceries. We were gone about an hour. We had just driven off when I realized I had forgotten my phone! I managed to not convince Michelle we had to go back to get it and off we went for groceries. It was horrible, severe withdrawal.

When my blackberry got stolen off my stroller back in July by that ...jerk.. on the bus, I quickly managed to buy a new one and was set up with a snazzy new bb (that is Blackberry to you noobs) in the matter of hours. I lost lots of newborn pictures and videos of Ricky I had taken with the old one and not uploaded and learned a valuable lesson. I now upload my phone ever couple of weeks.

I love my phone very much. What if stuff happens on Facebook and I'm not able to quickly respond?!?

Day 21 – A picture of something you wish you could forget

Now clearly I don't want to forget my Bamma. But I want to forget losing her. Actually, for many years after she passed I just pretended that she was still alive and I just hadn't seen her for awhile. I think I avoided going back to Ontario to visit (I was living in Whistler at the time) for a couple of years so that I didn't have to face up to The Farm without Her.

Losing her changed me, and changed my entire family. I am very grateful to have been her most favorite grandchild (y'all know it's true!) and I will never forget her.

She did leave us Poppa tho and he is pretty darn awesome.

Day 20 – A picture of somewhere you’d love to travel

Ah Scotland. It just looks so pretty and green :). I have never really been interested in vacationing anywhere tropical (tho if anyone wants to pay for me to have a tropical vaca I won't say no). I'm not much for broiling.

I have traveled and lived all over Canada, it is really a beautiful country that I live in. If I got to travel outside of Canada then I think Scotland would be my first choice.

Day 19 – A picture of something you love to do.

This is a picture of Ricky at the Calgary Zoo. I got a Zoo Pass in July and managed to get to the zoo at least 10 times already this year.

Before Ricky was born we took a Birth & Babies class held through Alberta Health. It is a ten week course with 12 expectant parents (moms and dads), the first five classes (held once a week) dealt with Birth related matters (so did you know that you don't need drugs at all during labour? All you really need is water. Insert very hard eye rolling here. The teacher had very strong opinions. I took drugs. All of them.) The last five classes dealt with baby related matters, you signed up for the class depending on your due date. Most babies were born around the five to seven week mark (Ricky was born at the four week mark).

All of us moms stayed in touch after class and we get together all the time. We can almost always find someone to do something with us in a day or so notice. It's an amazing support system and I feel that taking this course was one of the best parenting decisions we made pre-Ricky. Having 11 moms who are going through the same things that I am going through at the same time I am going through it is very helpful. It also helps that we are all on Mat Leave together too.

Long story short, I love to hang out with my 'mom friends' and play with the babies. And to gossip. We are having a belated Secret Santa party this coming weekend and I really hope all the babies make it.

Day 18 – A picture of the sexiest Woman alive

This one has been bugging me since I started. I have decided that I`m not doing this blog. I am having way too many body issues currently to make myself think about which woman is sexiest. Not happening.

Be back tomorrow with an exciting new blog post

Day 17 – A picture of something that has made a huge impact on your life recently

I don't know if anything makes a bigger impact than the birth of a child. Perhaps the death of a loved one. I decided to go with the birth of Richard Arthur Michael Ferens at 10:34PM on Friday May 13, 2011 tho.

Ricky was a much anticipated baby. Although I feared that I would have problems getting pregnant, due to my age and various other reasons, I was apparently an idiot as we got pregnant right away. Scared the bejeebus out of us actually.

Most of my pregnancy was spent with me being paranoid that something would happen. I had 5 ultrasounds and a few fetal heartbeat monitoring tests as well (we found that Ricky responded to the Mario theme song). Due to positioning of certain things I didn't get to feel Ricky moving around much which was bothersome. I know I will hear, and have heard, that the novelty of that wears off rather quickly (especially at 3AM when baby is playing soccer apparently) to me it was worse as I didn't have the reassurance of feeling him moving around. I lived in fear from doctor appointment to doctor appointment just so I could hear his heartbeat. Ultrasounds were amazing to me. We had our first one at around 8 weeks and got to see 'the blob' with a little heart beating. It was amazing.

Finally May 12th arrived. We had our Pre-natal class that night, I had some pains during class but just figured it was gas (hey..I was pregnant afterall). I mentioned during and after class that I was going to go into labour that night and Ricky was coming out on Friday. No if ands or buts about it. The teacher told me not to as the next weeks class was about breast feeding. I told her that I would bring the baby! Grocery shopping afterwards during which I thought.."hmmm, maybe". We got home around 11 and I had Mike put plastic on the bed (as I planned on sleeping all night ya know) just in case. Mike slept upstairs on the couch as I was restless. About midnight I realized that it was labour. Not so pleasant actually, oh well, can't get any worse right? Yah. Labour sucks. I tried a hot bath, ran out of hot water. I tried various positions to get comfortable. All the books are full of crap. Finally around 530AM I went to wake up and tell Mike. His response "can you hold off on it awhile?". Me being the wonderful person I was, told him to go sleep for a few more hours. Around 730 he got up again and showered, had breakfast, made his tea, fed the cats and lizard and finally we left for the hospital around 830. Sigh.

Got to the hospital, yup, beds are all full, I'm not really that far along labour-wise so why don't we just walk around the hospital for a couple of hours then come back (they did give me a shot of morphine and gravol tho). I had been throwing up since midnight and wasn't really down with that so we just went to the meditation room and chilled there for a couple of hours. Went back, still no further along, actually walk this time please. Sigh. Fine. Walk around the hospital, with my vomit dish having contractions while people stare at me. Awesome. Finally my water broke and we could go back.

Admitted and into my own private labour room. With drugs! And Mike and Heather are hanging out while I am quietly labouring. I was totally mellow and dealt with the whole labour/contraction thing calmly. Just ask them. Drugs were great. Ricky was born at 10:34PM. So I was in labour about 24 hours. Throwing up for 22 hours of that. Awake for 36'ish hours by the time I had him. Good times. But it is all okay cause now I have my baby and we can go home with him soon and be a family.

Nope. Due to a fever I spiked during labour and Ricky's heartbeat being a little wonky pre-birth they are putting him into NICU. So I got to hold him twice and count his little fingers and then they took him away from me. Mike went with Ricky at my request and I got cleaned up and then dropped my stuff off at my shared recovery room and headed right to NICU. Back and forth between there and my room for the next 14 hours. I think I got maybe a couple of hours of sleep in there but not much. I was pretty darn tired let me tell you. After a scare that they might transfer Ricky to Montana or Red Deer we got transferred to another hospital in Calgary (the NICU at the hospital I delivered at was full and he wasn't a serious enough case to warrant having to stay there). We got a private room in a pediatrics unit which was nice. He charmed all the nurses there. We were there for five days.

Due to the possiblity of Ricky having an infection they needed to pump him full of antibiotics. He had very small veins so they eventually had to run the IV through his head. It was terrifying for me. I was in continuous fear of pulling out the needle. He managed to pull it out 3 or 4 times which means they had to take him away to reinsert it. I was also struggling to nurse him properly and they had me feeding him formula so he wasn't that interested in learning how to properly.

We got home on Thursday morning and like I promised we went to class that night. There had been another baby, shout out to Declan and his parents!, born the day before Ricky was. He was a Big baby! Almost 10lbs. Ricky looked like a string bean compared to him, 7lbs.

So blah blah, many months have now gone by and I have a 7.5 month old baby. Who is the most amazing human being that I have ever known. I can be in the worst mood imaginable and look at him and be happy. He means the world to me and he has made me a better person.