Deep Freeze

I survived my first day of -40 weather here in Edmonton and I have to say it's not so bad when you're dressed properly. I would have liked to have had some snowpants, though, as the long johns I was sporting didn't quite do the trick.

I'm home with an upset stomach today. It seems to be getting better, but at least I'm not infecting any kiddies. I had a terrible headache last night and it was lingering this morning when I woke up, but of course I can't take anything (not entirely true; I could take Tylenol, but I'd rather not).

My cousin Christphor has arrived in town to do construction work. I plan to invite him over for supper and make sure he has a home-cooked meal. He's younger than me by a few years and we we've never been close, but my maternal instincts are kicking in and I'd like to make sure he's doing ok.

I don't plan to do much today, but the dishwasher needs some loading and unloading and I need to get started on the scarf for the girl at work to whom I am a "Secret Santa".

Jasper

I've been wanting to write about our weekend in Jasper for a while now, but I've been pretty busy. Jasper is my favourite place in Canada and it was so nice to go back for Scott's birthday. It was relatively quiet in the park since it's the off-season, but there were a lot of skiers at our hotel. This picture is from a little lake we hiked to. It was so peaceful and serene.

My weekend starts to get busy tomorrow. We meet with our doula tomorrow night for the first time and I'm really excited about it. On Friday night we're going to the hockey game, Saturday morning I have a meeting at church and I promised to make a quiche (which I'm totally regretting now), and then that afternnon I have a bunch of shopping to do. Then on Sunday we're going to the Oilers super skills competition. It should be a good weekend, but I wish I could skip the meeting at church. I took off next Friday at work so that I can get some stuff done here because I'm feeling quite over-whelmed. I don't like working full time very much.

My baby at 15 weeks

I don't have any new belly pics to post here because I'm really not showing much yet. I just had my second doctor's appointment today and it was really exciting because we heard the heartbeat. It's beating at around 150 beats per minute which is apparently in the normal range. It was so comforting and exciting to hear it since I haven't been growing very fast. I've only gained half a pound since my last appointment 4 weeks ago. But there really is a baby in there! He told me that since I'm tall I won't show as quickly as some other women and I'll always measure smaller.

I thought it was cute that the doctor found the heartbeat and then lost it because the baby moved away really fast.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

These are some of the cute things the parents have heard their kids say about me:

One mom told me her daughter will be upset when I go on mat. leave because I'm "so nice" and when they play "daycare" she always has to be "Marlene".

One of the boys told his mom that daddy loves Marlene.

A dad told me that his daughters named their pumpkin after me. That's my favourite.

Kids are so good for the ego.

Snow

I woke up to snow and I loved it. I really missed snow when I was in Vancouver - real snow. I cleaned off my car and ventured out on the snowy roads for the first time in about 3 years. It wasn't so bad, though. After making it through a traffic cirle I was going somewhat slow around the turn because of all the snow on the road. A guys behind me decided to pass me on the right going a little too fast. Once he got in front of me he started fish-tailing and I was really glad he didn't do that when he was beside me.

I made it to the church in Sherwood Park for my women's breakfast club and I was really glad I did. It was a really small group of women, but they were really sweet and they made me feel welcome. It's really nice to find a place that I feel a connection with and I can make a home base at. Now we just have to move to Sherwood park so i don't have to drive as far. Scott already works there so it just makes sense. It's about 20 minutes south of Edmonton.

Well, I'm at home with a stuffed up head and a sore throat, but I have to say that I'm in a pretty good mood. Yesterday I was feeling a little nervous about what my birth experience was going to be like based on the fact that I'm going with an OB/GYN instead of a midwife. For some reason I have the idea in my head that doctor's will laugh at me when I say that I want a natural birth. I know women all over the place deliver naturally with a doctor so I don't know where this came from. So yesterday I did some research on doulas and natural childbirth classes here in town and I started to feel better. I've spoken with my potential doula on the phone and I felt instant chemistry with her. We set up a consultation for the end of November. She also told me wonderful things about the doctor who'll be doing the birth so that made me really excited.

When I was looking at the website I was also excited to find a company here who brings parents cloth diapers every week and picks them up for washing for what I think is an incredible price. I've always wanted to use cloth diapers because of environmental reasons, but I also think they are better for the babies and they encourage toilet training sooner. I'm suddenly feeling so much better knowing that it is still possible to have the birth experience that I've always wanted!

Doctor's Appointment

I had my first doctor's appointment this morning and it took forever. Scott picked me up at the daycare at 11am and we arrived 15 minutes before the scheduled time of 11:30 in case there was any paper work to do. I only had to fill out my contact info and medical card number. At around noon they finally admitted us and we went to a little room where a nurse asked me a billion questions about my general health and took my blood pressure. All of that was fine. She took us to a small examination room and I slipped off to go the bathroom (the second time since I had arrived, of course) and when I came back Scott relayed the message to me that the doctor would be there any minutes and I was supposed to remove my nice warm clothing and put on some paper. I did this and sat on the paper-wrapped table and waited - and shivered. Scott and I sat and chatted for a while, but time kept going by. After about 25 minutes we started to get concerned that they had forgotten about us, but decided to give it some more time. Finally, after almost an hour, the doctor came in. It turned out he had to do a c-section at the hospital next door. We decided we'd forgive him for it. He did all the necessary things and listened for the heartbeat, which was the sole purpose that Scott had come along, but we couldn't hear it yet. He said that we'll be able to hear it at the next appointment in 4 weeks, though, so Scott will go to that one with me too. Another four weeks after that one we'll do the ultrasound and we'll find out if we're having a boy or a girl. I'm excited about that. I'm too excited to wait the whole pregnancy. We don't really care what it is, but it's fun to know.

I'm dissapointed that I can't have a midwife, but it's not covered in Alberta's healthcare. I've always said that I'd have the baby in the hospital with a midwife, but we can't really afford to pay for it, so I'll have to make do with a doctor. He seems like a nice man and apparently it's the nurses who care for you most of the time.

Scott and I went to church this morning at the Sherwood Park Alliance Church. It's the church he and his parents went to when they lived here before. I am happy to say that I really liked it. We went to the early, more traditional service, but I think next week I'll give the later contemporary one a try to see how I like it. I'm really excited about the opportunity to meet people and finally have some friends of my own. They have a whole bunch of women's groups and get-togethers that I'm looking forward to attending, like the monthly breakfast and the annual Christmas dinner.

Scott's out golfing (in the rain) with his friend and I just got my beef-vegetable soup in the slow cooker. It'll be done a little later than I'd like, but I haven't made it in a while so I'm looking forward to it. I haven't had a hard time cooking like some pregnant women do, but the smells coming through from other people's apartments is hard for me to deal with. I haven't been feeling nauseated like before, but I still can't stand smells. I was trying to describe it to Scott today because I think he's pretty sick of hearing me complain about it. My sense of smell is so strong sometimes that I can taste whatever is I'm smelling. So when I'm getting a bunch of things coming through the vents and windows like cigarettes, pot, laundry detergent and bad cooking, I feel pretty terrible. At the grocery store today I was trying to find some hand soap that was unscented, but I didn't have any luck. That's another thing I don't like.

Eleven Weeks

So here's my first belly shot. Ignore the mess behind me and the fact that I look terrible after a long day at work. At this point I feel like I'm having a girl even though Scott tells me it's silly to have a "feeling". He doesn't get women's intuition. Of course, I could be wrong. We don't care, though, as long it's healthy.

I've been feeling good for the past two days so I'm hoping that the morning sickness is going to be finished for good. It makes work a lot nicer when I'm not feeling sick all the time. Work's been fun actually, since I told them because another girl I work with is also pregnant and she's due a week before me. We get to bond over our bellies.

Spilling My Secret

It's time for me to spill my secret; I'm pregnant! I'm about 10 and 1/2 weeks and I'm due May 10th. I've been super tired and I've had some nausea for the last couple of weeks. The weirdest sensation is how I can't stand the smell of some things, particularly anything perfumey. I also don't want to eat some of my favourite foods.

I don't have any belly pics like Rachel yet, but I'll post some soon and I'll keep you all updated.

A Visit from Mom

My mom flew into town last night...I mean this morning. Her plane arrived at 1:30 this morning and we arrived at our apartment at 3:15. I'm not feeling too tired right now because I had some sleep before picking her up and I have today and tomorrow off so I could sleep in a bit this morning.

Scott has the car, but we may take a bus to the West Edmonton Mall today. Quite honestly it's probably the highlight for a tourist coming here. There are museums and stuff, and we live close to the legilative grounds which are nice for walking around, but if my visitors to Vancouver (my mom and my best friend, Emily) were to compare my two cities, there's much more to look at in Vancouver. I still like it better here, though. We're planning on checking out the farmer's market on Saturday and maybe we can convince Scott to come with us to Elk Island National Park for a nice walk through the woods on Sunday.

I wish we had tickets to the hockey game tonight, but it looks like we'll be watching it on t.v. instead.

Steak

We picked up our car today and it felt good to finally take a bunch of boxes to Value Village so that we have a bit more space to walk around our tiny living room. We drove out to Sherwood park to pick up Scott's friend (who normally would have driven us places) and we went to Earl's restaurant for lunch. I've been a craving steak for about a week now and it happened to be the special today so I ordered one. I don't normally order something so extravegant, but it was a special treat. It was really good. I couldn't finish it all, but I ate well beyond my comfort level simply because it tasted so good. I finally made myself stop eating, though, and I brought it home with me.

Scott is out golfing now and I had plans to do some much needed cleaning here, but my big meal made me a little tired so now I feel lazy. Maybe I'll see if there's any good movies on TV.

Cars and Hockey

Yesterday was a pretty full day. We met a friend of ours for breakfast at our new favourite restaurant, Ricki's, and then went car shopping for 4 hours. Most of the time was spent with Scott really liking specific cars and me saying, "I Guess it would be ok, until we went to the last place on Whyte Ave. It was probably the 20th Corolla we had looked at, but I finally liked it. It was the 2003 sport version, and the interior was really nice. It was around the price that we wanted to pay, it had the features we were looking for, and it was in good condition, so we got it. We're waiting for approval for financing and I think that'll be ok (I hope it will be) and we'll be able to pick it up this week once it it cleaned and certified and we have insurance. We're pretty excited to own our very first car.

After the full day of car shopping we went to Rexall place for the first hockey game in our mini-pack. We have 6 games in total, and last night's was a pre-season and the rest, of course, will be spread out through the regular season. We both agreed that the game was the least exciting of all the NHL games we'd ever been to. The Oilers were playing Calgary, so it had potential to be good, but it was sort of boring. There was no scoring in the first period and then Calgary scored twice in the last half of the second period. Edmonton finally scored in the last minute of the 3rd period so we had a minute or so of excitement, but they didn't score anymore. It doesn't really matter that they lost since it's still pre-season, but it would have been nice with some more excitement. The Flames were playing more veterans than Edmonton so it felt like watching a minor league team play an NHL team at times. The Oilers' veterans stepped it up and had more ice time at the end, though. I'm looking forward to going to the regular season games when they'll mean more and the teams will be made up of the best players and the rookies that didn't make it on the team will go back to trying to build up their skills for the next season.

Quick Update

It's been a pretty long time since I've blogged, but I've been tired when I get home from work. I basically cook supper, eat supper, and then clean up from supper. Sometimes a load of laundry is put in the wash, but I generally have been going to bed early.

I have to go to the daycare this afternoon to go through our supplies and see what we can spend some of our funding on. It doesn't sound like a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon, but I'll be getting a free lunch.

We've been looking at options for cars lately because the transit system here is pretty inadequate and as the cold weather comes on (rather quickly, it seems) we don't want to be standing at a bus stop. Scott may go looking this afternoon while I'm out and then hopefully tomorrow I can go too. A car would make getting groceries so much easier.

My first long weekend

I haven't been very good at updating my blog lately because by the time I get home from work I'm exhausted. I've been going to bed between 8 and 9!

After working there for only a week I woke up Monday morning with a sore throat. It lasted for three days, but it never turned into anything else. No stuffy nose or anything. That was sort of a blessing, I guess.

Yesterday we got some new sharks. I'm in the shark room and it's a room for 2-3 and a half year olds. Most of the older ones moved into the sunshine room and we got the new 2 year olds. Since it was the Friday before a long weekend it was a quiet day; we only had 9 kids. It was good since it's a new routine with new rules. The new sharks coming from the chikadee room aren't used to having to scrape their own plates into the garbage after meals and they're not used to having to sit during circle time. My big thing that I want to work on with them is cleaning up the toys that they aren't playing with before moving on to new ones.

I'm so excited to have my first long weekend. I don't really know what we're going to do. Scott's talking about going to a driving range with his friend this morning and I don't know what I'll do yet. I guess I'll just relax!

New Friends

Awe...sleeping in. I'll never take it for granted again. I actually woke up around 6 and felt like I could have got up, and then again at 7. I finally crawled out of bed around 8 and I feel very rested.

So on Thursday night I went out with the girls from work to Ceili's Irish pub. It's sort of close to my apartment so I was able to walk there. After having been there for about a half an hour and half way through my Strongbow, a blonde girl came and sat across from me. I thought she was one of my co-workers friends because I didn't recognize her from the daycare. Everyone was asking her how her holidays were going and asking her if she missed the daycare, so I decided she obviously worked there. Trying to be sociable, I say, "So do you work at the daycare too?" . Everyone started laughing then and told me she was my boss, Kim, who had been on holdiays since I started. It was a very memorable way to meet my boss for the first time.
It was a lot of fun that night and I hope I didn't come across as a huge dork with Kim. I was a little bit buzzed from having a drink on an empty stomach. She actually made a comment about how I said I was shy in my interview, but I didn't seem like it now. She's got a good sense of humour, though, and she's actually just a little bit older than me.

Almost the end of the week

One more day and I will have completed my first week at the daycare. I'm so glad that this job landed on my lap; it feels so good to be doing something that I feel like I was meant to do. I still want to have a home daycare, but this environment is good until then.
I've always felt like I was called to work with children in some form. Sometimes this feeling confused me when I was growing up, though, because there were some children I babysat as a teenager that absolutely drove me nuts and I didn't want to look after. While it is still challenging at times, I've learned to cope with difficult behaviour and I think I'm pretty natural with kids. I've never been one of those loud, crazy babysitters or teachers that run around and dance with the kids all the time. I encourage the kids to do that sort of thing and when I feel comfortable I'll join in. It's part of me being introverted. I admire the out-going type who can be crazy with the kids, though.
This week so far has shown me that I'll be really happy when the time comes for me to have my own daycare at home. Since I am quieter I like to have a small group of kids so that we can get to know each other better and play and learn in an intimate atmosphere. One of the challenges I've faced this week is how loud it can sometimes get with up to 18 pre-schoolers in the room. Both the children and I get distracted by what's going on and its hard to stay focused on each other. I've noticed that the quiet children gravitate towards me, while the more extroverted ones like to play with the louder teachers. That's why I think my future small daycare will be good. It will be an option for parents whose children like interaction with others, but do better in a small group. That's what I was like as a child and still am today.
This is a pretty rambling post, but I was just typing what I thought.

First Day

It's 6:51pm and I have been home from my first daycare shift for half an hour. I'm tired. I forgot how tiring it is to work with children all day. I like it, though. The other teachers are really nice, the parents are friendly, and the kids are fun. The only stressful part was the bathroom time after lunch. I'm still alive and there were no major problems. I've been invited out to have a pint at Ceili's pub on Thursday night. Apparently it's a weekly thing, but this week will be special because the girl that I'm replacing will be saying good-bye.

Phew!

I can let out a big breath of air now. Our stuff is here, we have cable (and internet), I took my first aid/cpr course. Evrything is settling down a little. This morning I went to the daycare to meet my new coworkers and see the place. I have a feeling I'm going to be very happy there. Everyone is really nice and they seem relaxed. I chatted a lot with the assistant director. I think I'm going to "click" with everyone.

Our apartment is in shambles right now. We have boxes everywhere and things aren't in their right places yet. Our bathroom and kitchen are basically set up, but the living room and bedroom aren't functional. The bedroom is ridiculously small and we don't have a storage room so we are having a hard time arranging things. It's mostly going to have to wait, though, because tomorrow night we're taking a red-eye flight to Toronto and we'll be in Kingston on Saturday morning. I'll see most of you on Sunday at Next.

That's all for now. Our computer chair is too high and I can't figure out how to adjust it; it's making my shoulders hurt.

Updates in Edmonton

Just to update everyone on where we're at, we've been in Edmonton for a week without any of our stuff. There was a mix-up and it's going to be late. Luckily, they're reducing the price significantly for us. Nice.

We've been spending our time exploring our new surroundings and catching up with friends. We've spent some time at internet cafes (and Circuit Circus - right now) to stay in touch with our other friends. Our stuff should arrive tomorrow and we should start feeling like we live here instead of being on vacation. More to come later.