Life as an opportunist

Hello friends,

Edie is sleeping for longer than expected which means that I have some time to write/eat/shower/put laundry out...you name it, I've pounced on the opportunity to do it as she slumbers.

Another week and…actually, for me, all weeks are kind of the same. Yesterday while having tea with our neighbors (yes, there is actually a standard tea-time here and we do partake occasionally), we were discussing life as new parents and both Nikki (the other mother) and I have definitely felt like there have been weeks that our lives were like the movie Groundhog Day. I’m sure every parent has felt it. Feed, change, settle, repeat over 24 hours. Nonetheless, Edie, Tim and I are happy and healthy and looking forward to a nice trip home in December.

Again, since my life revolves around feeding, changing nappies (that’s Aussie-speak for diapers) and calming storms in the wee one, there’s not a lot that I’ll talk about that isn’t influenced by Edie. She likes it that way. Actually, I’m not sure whether this is common in all children, I suspect not but I may be wrong, Edie is the sweetest, most pleasant baby EVER when she’s in the company of other people. You know, some babies are just unpleasant all the time (we’ve all seen them and felt bad for mom or dad)…With Edie, it’s just with us. Maybe that’s a good thing come to think of it…I certainly caused my parents embarrassment in front of other people with my cranky moods as a child, teenager and adult. But it’s hard not to tell people when they’re cooing over how well-behaved she is, just how manipulative she seems when she’s wailing in her crib until you pick her up, and then starts wailing again when she’s put back down…And then works her way into our bed (most of the time on top of one of us) because we’re just too tired to keep playing that game in the middle of the night. I realize that she is only 7 weeks old now, and probably hasn’t mastered the art of consciously manipulating people, but I have to keep reminding myself of that. Good thing she’s cute.

So, you may or may not be wondering about how our experiment in public transport has been going. I’m going to tell you about it anyway. For those who don’t know, when we decided to move to Australia, we had this great idea that because we were going to be living in a huge city, that we should be able to get by without having to buy a car by using the public transit system. We were both sick of the amount of driving that we were doing in Canada anyway. Of course at the time we had no idea that we would have a child on our hands so soon, or at all for that matter. But, given our stubborn nature, we decided to see if we could still hack it out with public transportation even though we’d found out that we’d have a baby with us 8 months after we arrived in Australia. Our reasoning originally was because we shouldn’t need a car in a city this size, it has since become a financial incentive for us as well…Losing an income and gaining a child hits the bankbook eventually. Thankfully there is a good bus system here and equally as thankfully, we have met friends with cars. For almost 2 months we had access to a car lent to us by our friend Peter while he was away overseas, and thankfully that was during the time that Edie stormed her way into this realm. We had to give that car back eventually, so we’ve been without for the past 5 weeks. Having had that car we realized that we should probably have one even if it just sat in our garage for the most part. It’d just good to have it as a backup in case of an emergency or if a bus decides not to show up (which happened to me twice in this past week). SO, reluctantly, we’ve contacted a guy who deals second hand cars and is on the lookout for what we want.

The nice thing is that used cars here can be super-duper old and still be in great shape due to the no winter factor. Our friend Peter (who’s car we’d borrowed) is driving an ’89 Toyota Corolla which is in great shape still. So that’s exactly what we’re looking for. What is also nice is that there are copious amounts of used Toyotas out there for very reasonable prices. I’ve been told that people are not allowed to own new cars for longer than 5 years in Japan and so lots of these 5 year old cars are exported to other countries. Apparently lots end up here. If you watched any street in Brisbane for 10 minutes you would be guarenteed to see at least 1 white Camry or Corolla pass by. So, in a short while our experiment in public transport will have come to an end with our purchase of a car. I’m sure it will be parked for much longer than it will be driven. I like the fact that Edie has already spent way more time in a bus than she has in a car. We’re working on keeping her ecological footprint small…That long-haul flight in December not taken into consideration. Actually, if you take a look at Jay’s blog (Tim’s brother…The Freeway to Serfdom…always an interesting read) he talked recently about a study which showed that people that would consider themselves “Green Idealists” are more likely to take long-haul flights which are absolutely terrible for the environment in terms of carbon emissions. I guess we’d like to think that we’d not label ourselves at all, let alone with a pretentious title like “Green Idealist” and we generally don’t buy into propaganda out there of which there is scads in terms of environmental issues of the day, but we do care about being good to the earth…And we’re taking one of the longest long-haul flights possible in about a month. And we’ve already done it once. So there you have it. That study is probably bang-on. It’s taking me a while to digest that one. Jay is a great source of brain-food. Check him out.

So, with the trip coming up we’ve been scrambling like mad to get Edie’s documentation up-to-date as infants cannot travel without a passport any longer, nor can they just be added to parents’ passports like they once could. It’s been a titch stressful. In order to get a passport for Edie, we need a Canadian proof of citizenship (because we’re not yet permanent residents in Australia), in order to get a proof of citizenship, we need her birth registration which we received last week. So, tomorrow we file our application for proof of citizenship and her passport application crossing our fingers that we’ll get everything back before we’re supposed to leave (the 4th of December). For normal Canadian passport applications being filed from Australia it’s supposed to take 15 working days, which is cutting everything pretty close. Thankfully they do make consideration of the fact that we already have our tickets purchased and our dates of travel, etc. But it certainly makes us aware of just how much control the government has over us. We can’t just travel at our own whim despite the fact that we shelled out cash for our not-so-cheap tickets already. And the whole thing about infants needing a passport...There are so many reasons why I’d consider that at the very least, entirely ridiculous. She changes in looks from day to day and even by the time her passport is actually processed theoretically her eye color could even be different. But her picture is awfully cute and we really just want to get home with all 3 of us for Christmas, so we’re sucking it up this time.

So in order to get pictures for her citizenship papers and passport we had to take her to a special studio which could meet the requirements for the picture specifications. I took her on Wednesday (huge bus trip) and ended up spending the afternoon in a shopping mall waiting for the pictures to be developed and stamped. I did discover the “parent’s room” at the mall which is like an oasis in the desert…Couches, TV, a microwave, no people…That was a bonus. Eventually I got the pictures and came home. I had to print Edie’s name on the back of the citizenship photos and neglected to tell Tim that the ink needed to dry before they were put away. He put them into a folder while they were still wet and I almost cried when I saw that there was ink all over one of the pictures the next day. So, on Saturday we had to go back to the studio. This time Edie wouldn’t wake up for the photographers, so again, it was a couple of hours before we were able to get out of there. But we got it all in the end. Everything will be sent to the Consulate tomorrow. If you’re the praying type, if you could plead on our behalf we’d appreciate it. If you’re not, we’ll take whatever you’ve got for making things beyond your control happen in your favour.

Edie’s hair has been falling out lately, especially in the sideburns region and at the back. She’s still got a nice thick strip of long hair on the bottom though. Kind of like the seasoned professor who’s got no hair on top but is clinging to the youthfulness of the long wavy stuff that still grows on the bottom. Now, let’s think of who that might be in, say, 15 years…Edie has also learned how to poo in the last week. We had it good there for about 5 weeks of no poo at all, which is common in breastfed babies. But she’s making up for it now. Thankfully we’ve made the transition to using cloth nappies which, with a biodegradable liner, work really well to contain poopies. They’re also so much cheaper to use than nappies. The really nice thing about cloth (that I’ve noticed) is that you can make them fit the baby, which I found really frustrating about disposables. Edie has a small rump and a large belly (pear-shaped, we like to call her, which is also Aussie-speak for a situation gone bad), the disposables never did quite fit right. So we’re all a bit happier I think.

And I think I’ll end things there but treat you to a few more pictures. I know that’s what you really want to see anyway! Edie is calling.

Love to everyone, can’t wait to see you in December!

Laura