Get behind me santa!

The title of this blog is the song title for one of my favorite Christmas tunes off of the Sufjan Stevens Christmas Album boxset. We unfortunatley left our copy in Canada and I miss it so much, but will soon be reunited with it. If anyone is looking for a good Christmas album, this is it!

HAPPY BEGINNING OF DECEMBER EVERYONE!

The time has come at last, we’re packing up our bags and will be flying out of Brissy on Thursday morning. Apart from the fact that Tim will be defending his PhD thesis, it’s full-on party time! As in a let’s meet Edie party! The very best kind. She tells me that she’s dying to meet everyone.

So, I think that our house might be on a Jehovah’s Witness target list. They’ve been faithfully dropping by (and when I say ‘they’, I mean numerous people, and different from the other visits leading us to believe that it’s not a coordinated effort) and making our lives interesting. Almost since we got here I’ve been dreading Tuesdays a little bit just because they usually show up on that day. It wasn’t so bad when I was pregnant, but now that we have Edie running around, the dread is more strongly felt as energy is just so precious. But I just can’t answer their questions in good conscience without drawing myself into further discussion. I try everytime, and everytime I fail. I was thoroughly impressed with my husband back when Edie was probably 6 weeks old or so and I, having opened the door to the visitors and having been again unwillingly engaged in deeper conversation, was wishing I could just go to sleep. In mid-conversation Tim came out from the kitchen and nicely told them that I needed some rest while firmly pushing them out of the doorway. I had hearts in my eyes for Tim that day. Meanwhile, last week I was feeding Edie out in our rocker in the front porch and I heard a knock at the door, I was closest so I answered the door, and it was a new batch asking if we were interested in the Bible. Tim swooped in again and told them yes, we were interested in the Bible, and also that we’d take a look at the literature and again gently shooed them out the door. It was after I sat down again that I realized that I hadn’t pulled up the strap to the dress that I was wearing (that I had lowered to breastfeed) and thus, for that entire visit my right side was ‘exposed’, but thankfully I had my undergarments fastened. I wonder if they’ll come back.

A lot has been happening on the Edie front in the cuteness department. CBA code red now has people running for their shelters. She giggles and smiles probably 75% of the time that she’s awake and she really melts Tim’s heart when he comes through the door after work. It’s so incredible to see her grow and develop. I’ve been attending a new parents group on Fridays and it’s been good for both Edie and I. Edie gets to gaze at and interact with other babies and I get to talk to people. At first I thought that the group was a bad idea because it’s tough not to compare your child to all of the others when they’re all roughly the same age, and in our group, happen to be mostly girls. I found that it brought out the monster in all of us…I didn’t like myself in that setting. But at the 2nd meeting things settled down and I actually found that for the most part I would hang out with these women even if we didn’t have children. We’re going to keep meeting up in the new year. That’s exciting as with having been pregnant and then having Edie, social time for making friends in Australia hasn’t been high on the priority list. I must say that I’m starting to feel human again, more like old Laura, which is nice. Old Laura plus new Edie is a fun combination.

So, I know that everyone is talking about the economy being in shambles, but I really hadn’t fully appreciated what that meant until recently. We’ve made friends with a girl here through EWB who is terrific. She’s passionate, driven and just really refreshing to hang out with. She’s been involved with some big EWB projects that are developing with indigenous groups in Australia and has been talking for a while about leaving her stable government job (which she doesn’t really like anyway) to start working in another job which would more directly involve working with indigenous peoples in an educational function. It’s something that’s been a bit of a dream for her and we’ve been talking a lot about it. We’ve been meaning to meet up over the past month but it hasn’t happened, but I was in touch with her last weekend and asked how the job situation was. She answered that she’s thinking that she’d better stay with the government job on account of the economy. I think my heart broke a little because if there is anyone who should be in a job where she thrives, it should be her but she won’t take the chance in these uncertain days, understandably. It got me thinking about something that Tim mentioned in one of his blog entries about how our generation thinks that things should be improving as we get older, i.e. financial stability, job satisfaction, etc. I’d add that our generation (or at least me) feels deep down that we are also entitled to choose a career path and should be able to be what we want to be without being limited by anything (especially money). This entitlement I’m starting to see as the enormous luxury that it is. Choice is actually quite extravagant, and in our case, I believe may be an illusion that we’ve come to accept as reality because we’ve really never lived through grand-scale economic hardship (i.e., more than me feeling the pinch). I think it’s becoming obvious that when people stop spending money, people start losing jobs. So, how long will it be before Tim and I discover that our research isn’t top of the list of priorities in slim times? Budget cuts hit research hard. But it’s not just us. The guy next door owns a construction company. What happens when people stop building because they can’t afford it? And so on. It’s becoming so plain to see just how reliant we are on this economic system, and it scares me a lot. Oy. Enough economics talk. There’s sure to be too much more to come on this front.

On the fun front, we purchased a car a couple of weeks ago. It’s a ’92 Corolla (manual) and runs like a dream. It’s also probably the most popular model in Brisbane. There are replicates everywhere, and actually our landlord drives one, his is a ‘93. Having a car definitely helps out with the entertaining Edie department. Last weekend we took her to the coast to watch wind surfers which we never could have done without a car. We also were able to attend a birthday party for one of our Kiwi friends. Edie loved it! She got to watch kids break open a piniata, and eat cake and jump on a trampoline. She actually got in on the trampoline action with Tim (see photo). This week I’ve been trying to teach her about airplanes. With our longest flight on the way home being 14 hours from Sydney to Vancouver, we’re wondering if we’re going to be the couple that everyone hates because their baby won’t keep quiet. We’ll see. It seems that over the past year I’ve thought more than ever that we’re just crazy…or perhaps just keeping life interesting...I hope that’s what people on the plane with us think.

We won’t be posting again until we return back in January, so until then, have a great, great Christmas season. For us, the cost of going home and all of the huge changes in our lives over the past year has forced us to forget about spending on presents, etc. this season. It’s pretty refreshing actually. I, more than ever before, am simply craving the company of family and friends.

We can’t wait to see you all!

Laura