Some of My Close Friends Are Cyclists

My baby brother has decided to throw his hat in the ring for a local political position. I think it's great - he's a young, radical, idealistic guy, but at the same time he's very reasonable, articulate and compassionate. In short - just the kind of person we want in politics. I must admit to a tinge of envy as I'd love to do something political eventually as well.

Anyway, his campaigning efforts are very grassroots. I came up with the idea that we should wear t-shirts with his name on them and attend local neighbourhood events where there are people likely to be sympathetic to his cause.

My brother is a very keen cyclist and part of his platform includes alternatives to car transportation. He does own a car, I think, but I have never seen him drive. In fact, I've never even seen it. He rides his bike everywhere and is active in Critical Mass events held in our city. (For those not familiar, on the last Friday of the month cyclists meet up at some key location and ride together through the streets to raise awareness and encourage biking; it can be controversial among motorists who are caught unaware, since the cyclists "cork" the intersections and prevent traffic from going through until the whole group, often thousands, has gone through.)

While I agree with that platform, and I think cars should be much more careful and more respectful of bikers, I do find some of the self-righteousness a little tiresome. This weekend we were driving down our street and there was a cyclist riding right smack-dab in the middle of the lane. It was a very wide lane and there were no cars parked on the side of the road to avoid, so it was a little bit obnoxious of her. Unphased, we passed her on the left, giving her at least four feet of clearance. We thought we had been quite respectful, so we were rather shocked to see her cursing us in the rearview mirror.

At the intersection she caught up to us and said "You were getting kind of close there." Never one to resist a fight, I had already rolled down my window and come up with a saucy reply. "It's called 'Share the Road'," I said, "not take up the entire road with your bike." Then there was sparring back and forth in which I proclaimed myself a cyclist as well (okay, sort of a white lie, but I did ride my road bike a lot before LM came along) and she told me we weren't using common sense. Sometimes people are far too self-righteous to reason with so I finally just looked away. (Thought of a great come-back two blocks later though.)

A few minutes later I suddenly realised both D and I were wearing our very bright, very large print "Vote Little Brother!" t-shirts. We started laughing until tears rolled down our face, because I'm sure that this crazy woman is probably someone who would absolutely love some of Little Brother's platforms. I called Little Bro to tell him about it, but somehow he didn't find it quite as uproariously funny as I did, so I decided to come here and tell you all instead.

Another Thought

After a weekend of trying to get excited about places that are well over half a mil, yet are all, in real estate speak "in need of TLC" and are in far distant parts of town, I've had another thought - the joint buy. That's right, buying a place with an in-law suite that we co-own with my mother. She'd rent out her part until she's more doddering and ready to downsize and live in it. In the meantime we'd rent it out. I'm actually pretty excited about the idea, and importantly, so is D. Oh, and of course my mother.

It will probably take longer to find the right place, but we could get a lot more. I'm not too worried about personal space - if anything, it would likely be my mother who would have to set boundaries on us. She's very sensitive to not 'intruding'. I guess the only wrinkle would be if D and I decided we didn't want to be in this city any more, or if she did. But I suppose by buying a place in the first place we are committing to being here for a while, and the way real estate is around here we'd stand to make some money even if we had to sell in five years. The demand here is so high that I don't see a crash happening - and even if there was a crash, it doesn't matter if your money is invested in a small single family home, or a larger one with a suite. So what do you think? Would you ever do it?

I'm watching the View right now while LM naps, and I just can't believe Whoopi is doing LA Weight Loss commercials. The commercials are so damn cheap looking. Speaking of naps, all my smugness about LM's sleep lately? It's gotten pretty bad again. Naps are working all right though there was a brief interlude where he stopped napping too. He was actually in a perfectly fine mood during that stint - but I almost went out of my mind - entertaining a baby for 12 hours a day is exhausting. That's improved again, but he is up SOOOO often at night. It's quite incredible. I keep reminding myself - everything is a phase!

I'm Bored, Therefore I Blog

BLAHHHH! Another day of mat leave - another evening spent alone reading blogs and playing online Scrabble while baby sleeps. Not sure if this has come across yet in my other posts (hah), but I really hate the fact that my husband works SOOOOO many hours!

You know what would be amazing? If I were on mat leave but I worked one day a week at a trendy clothing store; or maybe two half-days. Just enough to have intrigue and drama to talk about (because the owners and customers of this mythical trendy store would be very intriguing) but still loads of time for baby sign language classes and pushing the stroller in the sunshine while sipping a (dairy-free) frapo-mocha-tini. (I won't be insulted if that last sentence makes you throw up in your mouth a little - but I do love my baby sign.) Unfortunately childcare would cost me more than I could make in any trendy store, so that will remain a pipe dream. Imagine that - longing to work retail. Think of the discounts.

Anyway I may be off to bed since I am likely in for another long night - the wee man has bronchitis and his coughing wakes him often. And because he is thirsty or perhaps has a sore throat from the cough, he decides to wake me. I took him in last week but the random doctor at the walk-in clinic said "Oh, it's a cold." Um, yeah, I figured, but the kid coughed so hard he barfed and the nurse's line told me to bring him in. Sadly the walk-in doctor didn't spend enough time with us for me to express those concerns. After a quick once over with a cold stethoscope that made him cry, she just said "Steam him in the shower and feed him more often." The nurse's line made the exact same suggestions so I was super-happy to have bundled him up, driven to the clinic and waited in a room full of people much sicker than us. It's not that I wanted drugs - far from it - but another 30 seconds of reassurance and maybe some suggestions of what to watch for would have been nice. The clinic was not so busy that she couldn't have given that to a worried first-time mum.

And doesn't the "feed them more" advice seem silly? It assumes you don't demand feed - because if you're demand feeding you can't really feed them more since they eat whenever they're hungry. And since most doctors advocate demand feeding (at least that's the advice given to most of my IRL friends and chatroom buddies) shouldn't it be the baseline of normal? The advice should be "continue to demand feed." Which is what our family doctor said today at our four-month visit. (Yay!) She also diagnosed the bronchitis and spent a few minutes giving me advice on what to do and answering my questions. Now just hoping he recovers fast.

In other news - is this not the face of an angel? Don't you want to bury your face in that double chin?

Merry Belated Christmas

This is one of the first Boxing Days where I haven't had that overwhelming sense of let-down. Why? Because there is so much that I'm looking forward to in the next little while. I am a huge Christmas person, so that's a big admission for me. But LM just gets more interesting every day. And D and I are browsing real estate listings and thinking about a fixer-upper. And I'm really enjoying mat leave but also not entirely dreading the prospect of working again eventually. So life is good.

Also, Christmas and holidays are pretty over-stimulating for the kiddo so in a way I'm looking forward to getting back into my rainy January routine. We had events three nights in a row and LM tolerated the first two quite well, but by last night he was done like dinner. We were at my aunt's house trying to enjoy turkey dinner and he just screamed for about 30 minutes. All told four of us took turns trying to calm him down. Finally I just tied him up in a wrap and he fell asleep on my chest.

I could be wrong, but I think his teeth are bugging him. He's drooly, although I guess that's pretty normal for this age. His cheeks are also red and he's just so incredibly fussy. He is a fussy kid to begin with but recently he had started to get much calmer. Then in the past four or five days he's been really irritable again. On the weekend I sent D out to get him a teething pacifier. We'd never given him a pacifier before - not sure why, I guess I just wasn't sure what to use it for. He didn't seem to have an insatiable need to suck other than when he was hungry. But since he's got his hands in his mouth all the time and I thought a bumpy teether might be a really nice relief for him. However, we missed the boat on that one because other than his hands or moi, his tongue just ejects everything that goes in his mouth now. (Unfortunately it ejects the bottle too, after taking it quite peacefully several times. But then I didn't give it to him for a week and he somehow forgot. We've tried about ninety different things to get him on it again but I have now given up. It's too distressing to spend all that time pumping just to have to throw it away.)

As for childcare, thanks for the advice on the dilemma. What I've decided to do is to see if I can get the same person to come two nights in a row. Kids are welcome at dinner the first night, but since LM generally gets very fatigued around 7, perhaps it would be best to keep him out of the spotlight. That night dinner is at the hotel and it is a casual buffet, so I can just hover around the hotel room as much as I want, waiting until LM falls asleep before I leave, and "popping in" a couple of times throughout the night. Assuming things go well, I'll leave him the second night (when we'll be off-site, so it's harder for me to return), but if I get any weird feelings I'll just pull the paranoid mama card. I do find it aggravating that they assumed we were okay with sitters. But before I had a kid I thought women who weren't with them were over-protective, so I guess I shouldn't be too self-righteous about it.

Anyhoo, LM is adorably snoring away in his car seat because he hasn't woken up from our Christmas-light viewing drive yet, the Christmas tree is crusty and dry and losing needles everywhere (we cheaped out this year), and D is serving up leftovers. So much to be thankful for.

Tired Blather

Man - funny how a busy week is now busy not because of papers due or memos pending. Now my day can be made or broken depending on whether one little person has sinus congestion or not. Funnier still, I don't mind.

I will say one thing that has been tough lately is the length of D's hours. He is normally gone, for 12 hours a day. He leaves before 7 and is back a little after 7. That means morning to night, baby care is my job. I get him up in the morning and put him down at night. I deal with every scream in between (of which there are a great many). But I get all the smiles in between too. Usually D is home in time for bath and bedtime routine, but the very last part of the day is me because LM is still nursing to sleep.

I don't know what the point of that paragraph is. I should probably make one
but I'm too tired right now: LM was up at 6 this morning with congestion and he's still up at least twice a night. I guess the point of this post is that I'm happy, but tired, and occasionally a little sad that D isn't around more - but we're working on that.

Fickle Feline

People tell you lots of things before you have kids that you don't believe. One of them was that I'd start to feel differently toward my cat. Now D and I are bit nutty about our cats. Before the other one died, I syringe-fed her for weeks because I didn't want to put her down. Even before that, I've spent a fortune on vet bills, including ultrasounds and feline antidepressants! We said hello to the cats before we said hello to each other. I have her on special food that requires a trip to the vet to purchase. And I've turned down apartments, roommates and dates because of their incompatibility with felines.

So why does everything she does now make me completely mental? She craves attention but when she gets on my lap all I can think about is the cat hair. I have turned over litter-cleaning duties to D permanently because I just can't deal with it. All her irritating habits - the occasional puke, her incessant meowing before mealtimes, the fact that no food can be left on the counter for more than three minutes without her attempting to consume it - all seem a thousand times more irritating.

She's been banished from the bedroom since LM was born and D is now pushing for her re-entry. But although I used to let her snuggle next to my head, now I'm thinking she should be out of the bedroom permanently, even once LM is no longer in with us. I told D that and he looked shocked and surprised.

Don't get me wrong - somewhere deep inside, I still harbour affection for the little rascal - at least enough to feel guilty about my change of heart. But she has moved from queen of the roost to distant third.

Born or Made?

I was having a discussion with some people recently about parenthood and it really surprised me how many people felt that women, i.e. mothers, have some innate difference (they argued advantage) in terms of meeting their baby's needs. I, having been brought up by a classic liberal feminist, protested. It's true, I am the primary caregiver, but this, I argued, is for two reasons only, one economic and one physiological.

I'm home during the day because I happen to make less money right now, and it made more sense for me to take advantage of our country's relatively generous parental leave (which is obviously not as generous as D's salary!) Secondly, because we're breastfeeding, I am kind of glued to him in these early days. But, I argued, if it were Dad at home, he'd do the exact same thing as I do. Other than those two factors, mothers are no different than fathers.

But two things kind of made me rethink this a little. First, someone asked a hypothetical question about how if there was a fire, would you first help your baby or your spouse. My immediate response is BABY! Not because I love the baby more, but because he's my child and I just feel this overwhelming responsibility for him. I don't think the answer would change if he was 26 instead of six weeks. I assumed D would feel the same way, but when I asked him his immediate response was "You, hon!"

Then last night, as I was up late pumping in an effort to have enough of a stash of milk to, I don't know, get a haircut or go out to eat, I was sitting in the living room in the dark with my two guys down the hall in the bedroom. I heard the baby moan in the room, but being hooked up to the machine, I assumed D would deal with it. He didn't. The murmurs eventually grew to full-blown screaming, but D slept through it all until I went in and said, "Don't you hear him yelling his head off?"

So anyway, I'm wondering, is there more of a difference between mothers and fathers than just breasts and a few social conventions? Is there something underlying innate difference that goes beyond that? Are mothers (for the most part, there are always exceptions) just better suited to certain parts of the job and fathers to others?

It seems like motherhood has meant something very different (not better! just different) for me than fatherhood has meant for D. We are totally falling into this hunter-gatherer dyad, and D's role is all about providing and playing and mine is about nesting and feeding the family. Is it just economics that's forced us that way, or is it something more? Or am I just starting to feel like there's this innate "mother-ness" because motherhood is pretty much all I've got going on right now is baby, whereas D has this whole work life where he doesn't have to be Dad 100% of the time. It's just, I'm starting to think that even if I were working full-time, there would be something fundamentally different in our roles.

For some people these might seem so obvious - like, duh! Mums and dads are different. That was the way the discussion I had went. But I have to say, as someone who's always thought that gender differences were more nurture than nature, this is all a bit of a revelation.

Battle of Wills

Thanks so much for your positive comments. I think I was being a bit paranoid about them all gossiping about me. I'm a little over-sensitive after hearing two months worth of second-hand scary birth stories when we were open about doing a home birth.

Yesterday the same family member who passed on the frame advice told me for the 99th time that I wasn't dressing the baby warmly enough and that she was "terrified he was going to catch pneumonia." I had already made efforts to deal with her fears by putting a blanket over him when I carry him, even though I really don't think he's too cold at all. So on being told this again I semi-lost it and instead of nodding and then stewing about it later, I raised my voice and said "He is NOT going to catch pneumonia. You don't catch pneumonia from being cold!" Did I mention we were in a heated parking garage and headed up to a grocery store above via elevator?

Then the family member refused to buy anything at the grocery store because it was too expensive. She was only buying a breast of chicken and some greens, so while the shop was more expensive than the corner grocer, I figured the extra $2.50 was probably worth it to avoid a long detour and an extra stop, since I had to pick up something at the fancy store anyway. Apparently not. We dropped her off elsewhere to finish her shopping and dinner was then an hour late, which meant LM was yelling and overtired throughout. (We weren't at home, so couldn't put him down.) Passive-aggressive anyone?

Anyway I've been really really really good and tried not to complain or vent about D's family to him because I have a tendency to do that way too much, and to draw comparisons with my own family, which is pretty unfair since my own family drives me nuts too when I have to spend extended periods of time with them. But I did break my promise to myself about that and I vented a wee bit and we were able to laugh about it so it just seems hilarious and ridiculous instead of utterly upsetting.

And she does have many redeeming qualities - she is ultimately good-hearted. It's just hard to see them sometimes cause I'm too busy seeing red.

In good news, LM slept a whole 4 hours straight last night, which meant I did too! It was lovely. 11 p.m., 3 a.m., 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. Now that's a routine I can totally handle. I'm sure he'll growth spurt again around 6 weeks, but I feel so incredibly refreshed.

Some Positive Reinforcement Please?

When I was five or six years old, I was at a birthday party where I drew a picture of a clown for my mother and father. The clown was juggling three balls which flew around his head and I was exceedingly proud of it. I proudly showed it to the birthday girl who promptly ridiculed those balls and my clown and made me realise it was just a bad crayon drawing and in no way worthy of a spot on the fridge. Somehow my parents got the picture anyway and put it on the door to my dad's study, where it stayed for many months. Every time I passed it, I still felt like it was inadequate though - my initial pride in it never quite recovered from that pint-sized art critic's commentary.

Anyway, don't you just hate when something you show off proudly gets criticised? And you know that people you care about have been sitting around talking about what's wrong with it. I am aware that I am blowing this 1000x out of proportion, but it's been on my mind.

In the days before my LM's birth, I picked out beautiful black and white drawings for his wall. Then I made a special trip to the ninth circle of hell, also known as that ubiquitous Swedish design store to buy frames for them. I spent 45 minutes lining the pictures up exactly with a level and a tape measure - no easy feat when you are wedged between a crib and a wall with a watermelon-sized belly. I placed them high enough that they'd be out of reach of even a standing baby, but low enough that he'd be able to appreciate them.

Yesterday a family member pointedly mentioned that another family member had been to a safety conference on earthquake safety, and they had been talking about how it's really quite dangerous to have anything hanging above a crib. Basically, my lovingly placed photos could maim my child if the earth starts to move. "Something to consider..." she added nodding towards the room.

It really bothers me that the couple who attended the earthquake conference feels obliged to pass on this safety tidbit in such a roundabout way. It's one thing to say it upfront, and another to discuss it in private with another and get her to convey the message. It just bugs me to know they were all sitting around criticising my beautiful mini-nursery.

I am a pretty risk averse mama. I am so paranoid of SIDs that my baby sleeps on the hardest surface around. I bought one of those all-natural crib mattresses (although admittedly he has not yet slept in his crib). His bottle is glass so it's free of Bisphenol-A just in case all the fears about cancer are true. My newest baby carrier is one that's supposed to support the baby's back optimally for development. I never place my bouncy chair on an elevated surface and when he's in it, I move everything off adjacent tables or counters so they don't fall on him accidentally. Even his Vitamin-D drops are specifically all natural. I say all this not to demonstrate that I am some kind of superior mother, just to show that I put a lot of pressure on myself. And sometimes I just wish that instead of being reminded of the one thing I did wrong, someone would acknowledge that I'm trying really, really hard to do my best.

Besides, if the walls in this apartment move enough to shakes those pictures off the wall (they are like, ANCHORED on there), a few IKEA frames falling on him will be the least of our worries.

Today I Am Thankful For

First and foremost, my healthy and beautiful son. Motherhood is the hardest and the easiest thing ever. So much of it is so basic, so filled with unconditional love that it's easy to do; the hard part is hoping and wishing and trying your best at some of the mysterious parts - the unexplained cries, the 4 a.m. freak-outs. Adventures with Little Man make we want 10 children, but if this is the only chance fate grants me, I know I am exceedingly blessed.

My partner, D, without whom I would be only half of a whole; parenthood is one challenge it is fun to face together, and as with so many other parts of our relationship, I think we have some complementary skills. And we have lots of faith in each other, despite mutual moments of self-doubt and an undoubted diminishment of 'us' time.

My wacky and wonderful family who have showered us with support and love.

The beautiful city and country that I live in where I have security and resources that most of the world does not.

How to Deal

Argh - sometimes I really hate people. Most recently, them telling D stories of emergency cesaerean births and umbilical cords wrapped around baby's necks and generally trying to be really discouraging of the possibility of home birth. I wish they would just butt out.

Let me be clear, we are not dogmatic. We will go to the hospital if it is necessary. All the research I've done shows that home birth is as safe provided adequate measures are taken. I'm not just picking sources that are biased in favour of more natural options, but am going to medical journals and other ostensibly objective sources. Before I started my research I wasn't fixated on this issue - I think I went in to this project relatively unbiased. We will have intermitten heart-rate monitoring and take other measures to ensure the safety of our baby.

I admit I am often feeling hurt by these particular relations - I feel they marginalise me and make very little effort to hang out with me. And making statements like that to D makes me feel like they don't respect our choices, and are trying to lobby him. I resent being treated like the crazy wife. Anyway I wish they would stop their fear-mongering - I find it really passive-aggressive. At least say it with me there so I can say my piece.

Childcare and so on

I'm calling it a him now - I've been convinced for much of this pregnancy that we are having a girl, as I just felt very female vibes. D has been equally convinced of its maleness. But recently I have started to feel a very male vibe from it, and D has started referring to us (er... me) as "his girls." Anyway, we shall see. I have resisted buying any pink until now, but now that it's a boy (er, that I think it's a boy) I want to buy some pink to be truly egalitarian.

I've had friends ask me what we plan to do for childcare. The answer is - we have no idea. It is over a year away after all. But we do need to get on waitlists as daycare availability is abysmal here - waitlists are routinely a year or longer and people often register for waitlists right after conception!

All the lawyers I know have nannies - they say the hours are just too unpredictable for daycare. A couple of people have recommended that live-in help would be the way to go. When a partner at my firm suggested it, I almost said - you do remember what you pay me right? We live in a tiny apartment and are making a den into a nursery. We live in a town where half a million won't buy you a house within the city limits. Would the nanny live in our linen closet?

D and I combined make a great income that puts us statistically well above average. But my first year law salary, while completely respectable, is actually 50% less than I was making three years ago. After taxes, it would cover a nanny or a bigger place, but not both. If we do go the nanny route for my first year of work, we'll likely have less disposable income than when I'm on maternity leave. At least on mat leave I'll get EI and the EI will be more than the difference between what I'll make first year and what a nanny costs. I am excited about the career path I've chosen and all, but part of my desire to work does involve making some money at it.

It's all pretty sobering and makes you realise why women are so limited in non-conventional career choices. Anything where there may be extra or unpredictable hours involve a lot of expensive childcare options. While I know D will do his share, he works long hours as well. I hope we can both work something out so that we are both able to be more flexible and I'm really lucky to have a guy who's very dedicated to being 50/50. But I know that usually the one who ends up cutting back on hours and pay is the mother - and I can understand why that happens. He already makes so much more than I don't see myself catching up for at least 5 years. It's the reason we aren't splitting the parental leave 50/50 this time - we couldn't survive on what I'd make.

If I find it this hard, in one of the high-paying firms in a very lucrative profession, just imagine how hard it is for most women.

Bow Ties and Baby Clothes

The last week has been hellishly busy. I celebrated over the weekend by doing a fat lot of nothing. I'm not sure why it has to be a fat lot, and not just a lot, but it does.

I discovered a delicious dim sum place - somehow those sweet, savoury, slippery little treats hit the spot in a way that's just right these days. It's cart upon cart of mysterious and complex little dishes - all of them tasting ten times better than they look - mmmm. I may have to go again this weekend. And of course for future reference, dim sum restaurants are a perfect place to bring babies as there are dozens of them around and every bow-tied waiter stops to fawn.

Then I bought my first maternity pants, though truthfully I am not showing at all. But they were $27 and I love an excuse to shop. The only thing that has really changed is that I am more bloated than usual after eating and I can't suck my stomach in line with my ribs the way I used to be able to.

I did finally tell my mother, who was suitably pleased. She's very excited to go to Holt Renfrew and buy designer outfits... I remember walking in there with her once and exclaiming "WHO would spent $50 on baby clothes?"
"I would..." she replied in a small voice. My mother, who has spent 40 years in a very selfless, service-oriented career, loves Holt Renfrew. So who I am to judge?

Umm...

That's a line right?

Is it wrong that my first response was "Oh my god - what have I done?"

The end of the holidays

Today is the first day of classes. Not for me though, my slacker schedule has me free on Mondays, which is kind of nice. It delays reality a little longer. We had a wonderful, if exhausting, seven days in the Caribbean over Christmas. My immediate family was also there. We saw lots of critters, including two gorgeous dolphins playing in the waves, and a very large crocodile. We stayed at a really nice little hotel; it was sort of a rustic deluxe thing - no air conditioning, no fancy pool, no enormous white sand beach, but just a bunch of brightly coloured cottages with decks that looked right over the ocean.

I had the usual spats with my brothers and mother; something about them does bring out a very anal side of me. My mother called it "holier-than-thou." But D, who never hesitates to call me on it when I'm being a tad unreasonable, did side with me at most times (although never speaks up then!); he's sort of a sanity barometre. My family loves to complain about everything - the food, the service, the rooms. And while I'm not averse to a little gripe session myself, as this blog, even this paragraph, no doubt affirms, I like to turn off my critical side when I'm IN PARADISE! All they want to do is sit around the cottage and listen to music, or read alone at the bar. And oh lord, they drink - they really pack it away. Oops, there's my holier-than-thou side coming through. I will stop.

Last weekend D's job had a retreat; spouses were generously permitted to tag along and enjoy the very nice accommodation and tasty meals. D works with a lot of young folks and I think that must be a lot of fun. It's quite a different atmosphere from the staid law firm world where the median age is over 40. I don't think anyone at D's firm, partners included, has even hit 40 yet.

Yes, the party scene was a little different at the retreat than what I've seen so far in my profession. The partners showed up at a basement dance club and were grooving with the best of them. Can't say I've seen that (nor would I necessarily want to) where I work. But then a lot of people who enter the legal profession have similar personality traits; we all have a dose of Type-A-ness. It's a well-paying job and many of us, if we are honest, have entered the professional at least partly because of that, yet we're not the type of people who have the sort of creativity and tolerance for risk that you find in entrepreneurs. All of this doesn't necessarily add up to a crew who likes to hit the trendy spots or the up-and-coming after-hours. Now that I think about it, law parties are a lot like civil servant parties. Hmm - something to ponder on in the future - whether or not choosing a job based on the party scene is a good or bad life strategy. I can see some good arguments for doing so, but it's certainly not the path I've taken!

I've been battling a cold - it hasn't hit yet, but I've got the sneezes and a general grogginess, tummy ache, headache. I got my flu shot, so I hope it preserves me from anything truly awful. Part of me wonders if perhaps we made a little Jamaica Mistaica when we were on holiday and if that's what's making me feel so strange. It would be absolutely terrible timing work-wise, money-wise etc. But I'm sure a little part of me will be sad if my suspicion is wrong. Plus, it gives me an excuse to surf the net for two- and three-bedroom homes for sale, which is always fun.