Pitiful, Just Pitiful

Luke's shirt says, "Always Hungry". Normally that's true, but not the last few days while he's been sick.

If anything was ever pitiful, it's this sick boy. He's losing his voice and he sounds hoarse with his metallic cough. When he cries he squeaks like a teenager going through puberty. He gets so tired sometimes that he just lays down on his belly on the floor. If he doesn't show any signs of improvement today I will take him to the doctor tomorrow.

Today is Derek's and my 5th anniversary. Sometimes it's hard to believe it's been that long. And other times 5 years feel like 15. We've lived in 8 places in 5 years (some of them temporary while we were in the process of moving someplace else). Derek and I have both graduated from the programs we were in when we got married. We've both spent at least a year working full-time. We have moved to Canada, back to California, and back to Canada. We have gone from a King size mattress, to a Queen, to a Full (downsizing!). We have gone from a 500 sq ft apartment in Fresno(was it that much?) to owning a house that we rented out half of, to renting an 1100 sq ft apartment that we shared with 2 other adults and two dogs, to owning our very own home with wonderful space for gardening.

What else have we done in 5 years? I have started a new career as a photographer. We have both started the journey of parenthood. So much has happened in five years. I really don't feel like the same person as that girl who got married in her parent's back yard five years ago. It's been a wonderful five years. And a difficult five years. If I could do them over again I wouldn't. I'll just have another round of five!

It's Not Teeth

It's not his teeth. It's a cold. And now I've got it too. I can feel a tickle in the back of my throat and when I woke up this morning my eyes were all crusty. Luke went to bed at 8 last night, woke up at 6:30 again, nursed and went back to sleep. It's 9 now. Thirteen hours!

Part of me thinks I should wake him up so that he'll nap properly. But he's sick, and if he's sleeping so long I know he needs it, so I don't want to wake him. Boy, it's a good thing I haven't had anything planned these few days. His routine is all out of whack.

The other night on my drive home from Winnipeg I saw a deer cross the road way up ahead of me. It was dusk, that time when everything's hard to see because the dark things blend into the dark, and the bright things blend into the bright. So I slowed down a little and then thought, "That deer was way up ahead why are you slowing down? Deer don't often run around by themselves, that's why." So I slowed down even more. Moments later, perhaps even as this conversations was going on in my head, my peripheral vision caught something and before I knew it a second deer ran out in front of me. If I hadn't slowed down there is no question that I would have hit that second deer. It was inches away.

The whole rest of the drive I was tense, peering into the darkness beside the road for any sign of another deer. I was afraid that a deer was going to run across the road BEHIND an oncoming car and I wouldn't see it. Well, I guess it was my night for deer. Just past Carman, green lights sparkled just outside my headlights' reach. I turned on the brights and at least 8 deer shadows stretched menacingly across the ditch! I slowed and honked my horn, and the car coming towards me realized what I was doing and also slowed down. Just after I passed, a herd of deer crossed the road in the dark. In my rear view mirror I could see their profiles clopping across the road, silhouetted by the lights of a tractor out in the field seeding.

I wonder how many deer are hit by tractors every year?

Can't Believe The Sleep

It's 9:40 am. Luke went to bed last night at 8:30. He woke up at seven and cried for fifteen minutes, I nursed him thinking we would get up right away if he was going to stand at the corner of his crib and scream. He fell back to sleep while nursing and it's now almost 10 am. Normally 10 am would be nap-time. Poor baby, I think these teeth are really messing with the quality of his sleep. When I went in to nurse him this morning his nose was all stuffed up and he sounded how I imagine a teddy bear would sound if they could cry.

Here's some shots from my photography class field trip last night. I was playing with shutter speed in the ghost images. Two hours of shooting one of the most historic buildings in Winnipeg...so much fun! I promise I'll have some new ones of Luke for tomorrow's post! For now I am going to let him sleep.

Tuesdays = Long Days

The biggest news today is that my website is up! Check it out here: Laura Ann Thiessen Photography. and give me a little grace, it's still a work in progress.

Luke didn't sleep well last night. I'm blaming it on the teething. But I'm exhausted after being up four times in the night, and so is he, which is why he's sleeping so nicely now.

My to-do list is very long today. I have laundry, and meals, phone calls, errands, and thankfully Luke and I already hit the pharmacy and the grocery store. Because now we have to wait for the appliance repair-man to come take a look at our fifty year-old dryer, which is no longer heating. And I have one clean cloth diaper left! Let's pray he can fix it and I can dry the diapers.

This evening I am headed to Winnipeg again for my photography class. Today we are going on a field trip to the Legislature Building and taking architectural photos. Our assignment from the last week was to take abstract photographs of everyday things in our home. Here is what I've got so far.

Yoga Zebra

Luke is wearing his yoga zebra jammies today and he's so cuddly in them. They're just a little small, so he fits in them snugly, which makes for a great chubby thigh squeeze.

Today is a holiday here, so Derek is outside working on siding. Saturday he put in the ground trim for our deck, and we hauled rock back to lay on top of the weed screen. I also planted a few roses, and Luke got to ride in the wagon at the nursery (when I went to buy roses). And as you can see he got another ride in the afternoon, in Daddy's wheelbarrow!

Luke was pretty grumpy all day Saturday, and took LONG naps. He had a little bit of a fever and when he woke up from his naps his nose was runny. For now I am blaming it on his top front teeth. They've been taking forever to break through! But his left one is finally out, and I don't think the right one is far behind.

Yesterday Derek and Luke did Greek and Hebrew flashcards on the couch. Luke was very helpful, but got frustrated with how slow Derek was at getting some of them! I got the frustrated face on camera, at last! He pulls his hair, clamps his teeth together, closes his eyes and goes, "Da-da-da-da-da!"

First Steps

Here is another one of those things that is so normal for most people, but seems amazing and fresh when Luke does it! Last night he walked from the couch to the TV and back, and today he is off...there's no stopping him. Luke is Walking!

Lost on the Prairies

These are pictures from last week. This morning Luke and I ran out to get groceries first thing, so I didn't get a chance to take a new picture yet today.

They say that if your dog ran away on the prairies you could watch it run for three days. But yesterday Luke and I got lost on the prairies. There's actually a valley called the Pembina Valley, and we got into it and lost our way.

We were headed for the Pembina Hutterite Colony west of Morden. We got some directions that said to turn on a certain road and once you hit gravel it's just a bit further. So we turned on that road, hit gravel (which was actually an enormous mud hole!), and drove a way in. And a little more. And a little more. Where was this place supposed to be? Did I miss the sign?

I kept driving down this gravel road thinking, "A bit further" can mean different things to different people. Plus, I was afraid to try to turn around in the mud. Finally I came to a dead end. The road was closed up ahead due to the mud. I turned around and the first house I came to I stopped to ask directions.

"Whoa, you're really lost", was her reaction to my tale. Miles and miles and miles away the Hutterites were laughing. I'm sure they weren't laughing at me, because they're very polite people, but I sure felt silly. So I drove all the way back down the muddy gravel road, down the paved road, onto the highway, and 20 kilometers after that I was at the Hutterite Colony.

When I drove up there were kids playing in a field, but the rest of the place seemed totally dead. I parked in the first lot I came to and got out thinking I would knock on doors if I had to. I was not going to leave without my chickens now that I've been driving for an hour and a half!

As I was getting Luke out of the car a young boy came up to us. He couldn't speak, his toes were pointed in, he seemed to be double jointed, and he was real scrawny with his hair buzzed off and pointing in all directions. I asked about buying chickens and he nodded his head in an exaggerated way, grabbed my hand, and off we went. Down the garden stairs, across several court yards, into a dark building, down some more stairs into a smelly basement, past some cattle carcasses hanging from hooks, through banana boxes shouting "California" in yellow and blue, and finally we stood next to a man speaking German into a telephone next to a bloody meat shaver underneath a clock that was frozen at 10:24.

The man nodded at us and the boy made a sound like a seal. Finally the man got off the phone and said, "Good job Joseph! You knew I was here." Joseph had let go of my hand only when the man nodded at us, and my sweaty palm was shaken by the man and I asked about chicken. "Yes, yes. How many do you want?" "How many in your family?" And Joseph came out of a freezer carrying sausage and pickles. "No, Joseph. Don't bother the lady." But Joseph insisted I carry the sausage. So the man said, "I'll give it to you half-price. You try it and if you like it you come get more."

Joseph smiled and disappeared. The man carried my very own banana box full of chickens and sausage through the cold storage, up the stairs, across the courtyard, up the garden stairs, and put it in the trunk of my car. $40 got me six chickens, and a package of sausage! And I had such an adventure finding the place, and then following Joseph around, that I left without remembering I wanted to buy eggs, too.