This Moment!

Inspired by Soule Mama
A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Spring brings many things!

It's been a while since I posted here, due to lack of time in the past few weeks mostly, but time is coming back on my side! Spring has finally made itself felt in my cold corner of Québec and snow is actually melting!

What are the things Springs brings my way?

Connor and Deirdre just started a new daycare together.

Lee is starting a new client search campaign for his business he thought he was going to quit

I queued and downloaded at least a dozen knitting patterns on Ravelry

I am looking for a transfer from my department to another one

I feel the need to clean the house top to bottom...and get rid of A LOT of junk

I am about to have much more time to sew cloth diapers

I put the first load of freshly laundered diapers on the drying rack Outside to dry!

Connor is become a nicer and more polite little boy every day, helping his baby sister do all sorts of things!

Deirdre is almost walking already!

And with Spring, a new fresh start to this blog is about to begin!

Don't worry, I know I promised a picture of Daddy's hat...it will come!

A hat for Daddy!

I have been very busy lately, with appointements, job search, daycare search, daycare visits...that blogging had to be left aside for a little while. I did however find some time to do some knitting to help me relax a bit...in silence (what sewing doesn't allow). I have never knitted anything without a pattern and I had fancied the idea of making my hubby a hat for a little while. So, taking a deep breath and doing a lot of planing (that didn't really bring me anywhere), I jumped head first in my own Me Made pattern....the end result is beautiful (photo to come) but the original pattern I so carefully put down on paper was rewritten as I was knitting...entirely, to the point of not being the same pattern at all!

I had seen people put up their projects on Ravelry and I wasn't sure what it was until I checked it out. At first, I didn't really see the point of signing up myself, but when my own made up project started to seed in my mind, I thought Ravelry could have handy tools to help. And it did! When I want to make another one of Daddy's hat, I'll have it all on Ravelry!

Wishing for a good night sleep

With Deirdre's teething, it's been a bumpy ride lately here...but finaly They have made an appearance; two sweet little teeth! At last a little bit of a pain break for our littlest one! I trully hope she sleeps well tonight.

As for Connor, he always sleeps well...thank goodness!

I will be breif today as I plan to post more once we are done the daycare hunt. I am working on a small project too that brought me to Ravelry... pictures to come!

For now, all I need is my bed!

This Moment, a Friday ritual

This Moment; inspired by SouleMama


A simple picture of a moment of the week. No words, just the image. Enjoy

My big fear...back to work...coming too soon!

Who wants to go back to work after 50 weeks of Mat Leave? Not me! Unlike many people, I despise our society when it comes to family values! Maybe it's because of some bad experiences at work, or because my own values changed drastically when my son was born, but looking at some statistics found online (See the Work and Family Foundation of Canada), I don't think I am the only one.

My view on certain issues regarding working and raising a family took a drastic change when my first Maternity Leave came to an end. Connor was 10 months old, and that very Monday in October, he had kept us up all night with Croup Cough, been to the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario the day before, and had to go back that same evening. All my colleagues were either sick or on vacation and I had to do literally everything at the office, by myself, on my first day after being gone for 50 weeks. And not to mention I was 6 weeks pregnant with Deirdre. It didn't start very well! And that entire week was hell, with Connor sick, and little chances of taking time off. I burned myself out right then and there.

 My department advertises itself as offering flexible work schedules...but in my case, I had to fight to move my shift from 9 to 5, down to 8 to 4...and even that was not working for me. Never would my manager have allowed me to do some Telework, but some of his favourite little puppets were allowed.

My situation is far from being that isolated. Many people face similar issues when working whilst having to care for pre-school age children. I hear sometimes of countries where parental leave is 5 years! If that is paid decently, that should be the case EVERYWHERE!  How I wish Canada was one of those countries. Or at least, that a mother coming back to work be given a gradual return, telework opportunities, reduced hours, real flexible schedules, more family related leave to care for kids too ill to go to daycare...and even better, you should have a real good subvention to be a stay at home parent.

I believe in this day an age, there should be more options in terms of work schedules. Why would 40 hours a week be suitable for every one? Its not suitable for me! Ideally, I would not start work before 9:00 am and would be back home by 4:00 pm. And that, Monday to Thursday. Two day weekends when you miss your kids is not long enough.

Also, I would make it so working while pregnant would be only by personal choice, not by financial necessity. I worked up till I was 33 weeks pregnant and had to start Mat Leave due to physical, mental and emotional exhaustion...and guess what, I got myself a nice little "postpartum depression" afterwards. Thanks Society, I really needed that!

I calculated for one day, how a normal work day is divided in North America:
8 hours of sleep
8 hours at work with strangers not related to you.
2 hours to commute from home to work and vice versa (including dropping kids off at daycare)
1 hour for errands and other chores
2 hours for eating meals
1 hour for preparing meals
2 hours for personal time (that means to play with your kids and to relax yourself...)

And than you wonder why people sacrifice hours of sleep to have more time for themselves...and sacrifice meal time, meal preparation, chores, to spend more time with kids.
And then you wonder why people are sleep deprived, suffer from burn outs, chronic fatigue...

Really, where is our society going you think?

Creative inspiration!

Ever woke up in the middle of the night with a great idea to make something and was unable to fall back asleep since elaborating on that idea was haunting your mind all of a sudden? Or have you went to bed at night with a great idea and couldn't get a good rest as you couldn't stop thinking about it. Or even worst, spent a night putting your idea into action instead of going to bed! Well, all of the above have happened to me. Recently, I have been obsessed with my flat diaper conversion and ideas to make pocket diapers...but also a few creative ideas to organize my house stylishly.

 For all of you still using disposable diapers, or like me, alternating between both, you might love this idea. Since we have a toddler not yet potty trained, and an infant, we accumulate quite the amount of diaper boxes. And since our house is a two story house, with bedrooms on the second level...it's not always convenient to have all the kids clothing and mostly used items in their rooms.

So we set up a change table in the dining room and a change area in the living room. But having everything just "put" on the shelves of a change table is not really "organized" and a bit annoying. You'd say: " what about baskets?"  We don't have any, and since all those diaper boxes we just sitting there, waiting for Recycling day, I thought they were the perfect size to become drawers for my daughters mostly used items under the change table.

Yeah, the Pampers and Huggies logos and desings are not really "stylish"! But with a few materials and a bit of imagination, they can become everything BUT diaper boxes!

I have been using those boxes for a few months without alteration, but now, I am ready to give them a face lift. I have plans of covering them with fabric, adding ribbons all around and making handles with rope...Tutorial and instructions to come.

Making plans for the day...than what?

Every morning I get up with a big plan of action for the day; I will clean the kitchen, fold the laundry, wash diapers, make puree, wash the floors, vaccum the living room, and hopefully pre-make dinner for tomorrow and the day after...

At the end of the day, however, I may have done one or two of these things. Because the minute Deirdre takes a nap, all I want to do is sit and relax, write a bit here, do some research, talk on facebook, anything you can think of on a computer (including video games) but no chores.

I'm sure many other moms feel the same. Do you? Oh, but I'm sure all you other moms out there don't give in to the laziness as much as I do...or do you?

So now I am planning on getting motivated to get my bum off that computer chair and do some work. What should I start with....something quiet...don't want to wake up the baby! So I'll fold laundry mabe? That is not too much fun, but hey, it needs to be done!