A Visit from the Pedouin Family On a Quint Cycle Journey

I have been following the incredible journey of the Vogel Family, as they biked from the top of Alaska to the tip of South America… along the way they posted a link to another biking family, the Pedouins, who were biking from Kentucky to Alaska on a Quint Cycle. I checked out their website, and discovered they would be on Vancouver Island in June 2010. At the time, we were living on a property that had a great layout for camping, so we offered them a place to stay, and free haircuts at Brent G Hair & Spa for the whole family. This was before they had even started their journey in August of 2009.

This week we got the call – they were on Gabriola Island! Although we were unable to put them up, another family on the island gave them a place to stay, and we booked 5 haircut appointments. The family arrived at 3 PM on Tuesday, June 8th!

Wow! A powerful surge of energy entered the salon with the family, along with Frederick, a fellow biker who also happened to be a film-maker and was shooting a documentary about the family, and Derrick, a reporter from our local newspaper, the Gabriola Sounder News.

The kids made a beeline for the candy on the front desk, and our in-house masseuse, Chalise, generously offered complimentary massages to the whole family.

Brent started by giving the three girls, Cheyenne (7), Jasmine (5), and Robin (3) a small trim. Chalise gave Bill a massage.

Then it was mom’s turn for a haircut. In her ultra-cool Dutch accent, she said “chop it all off! I’ve been waiting a whole year to go short and sporty, the way my hair was when I met Bill at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.” And short it was! But wait. Not all was right. Mid-haircut Jasmine and Robin spotted the drastic make-over and pandemonium erupted. Howls of dismay and even a (harmless) bite to Brent’s leg ensued until Bill intervened. Soon he had the girls calmed down, Jasmine left with Paul of Slow Rise Bakery to buy ice cream and peace was restored.

Then Cheyenne emerged from her massage. The howls of dismay and cries of “Mom! Put it back! I hate it!” filled the salon again. Mom, the one constant in the girl’s life over the past year, had changed. How dare she?! Fortunately mom loved the change and was able to convince the girls (eventually) that she was still the same awesome mom she had always been. (Is it okay to admit I had quite the giggle watching this exchange?! Or is that a bit too sadistic? LOL)

We are honored to have met this family and are in awe of the adventure they are undertaking. The memories they are building, the will power (over 100 bike repairs, Bill?!), the stamina, the joy, the energy…

Wow. You rock. Anytime you want to come stay with us, you are always welcome in our home.

The family left the next day, in the pouring rain…

Summer’s Allure vs Online Social Networking

Back in the late 90′s I discovered the internet. It was so COOL how you could instant message with people and I spent hours chatting online. I loved writing and getting emails… I even met my ex-husband online in a chat room…

Then came blogs… They replaced instant messaging for me (all that chatting got a bit old and felt too intrusive) and I really enjoyed reading dozens of different blogs, and leaving comments. I started half a dozen different topical blogs myself and loved getting comments and responding to them.

I’ve spent HOURS upon HOURS reading and responding to threads on four or five different forums (my post count is embarrassingly high). I signed up on My Space but didn’t really “get it”, and totally resisted Face Book… until less than a year ago… At first it was so neat reconnecting with friends, reading and responding to status updates and thinking up witty things to say… Now I have almost 400 “friends” and I struggle to remember who’s who, and quite honestly, I’m not really all that interested in what people are doing every minute of every day.

I find myself mindlessly playing Bejeweled on FB cause I don’t feel like interacting with people. I’m tired of all the online networking. I prefer my real life, and as loathe as I am to admit it, I now find the internet boring.

I enjoy having it as a resource to look things up, google calendar keeps me organized and on track… Do you know I have a BOOK of online logins and passwords? A BOOK. I have a problem, people.

A close friend deactivated her FB account recently and totally inspired me to take an internet sabbatical. I took a long internet break last year, cleared out my blog reader, shut down my forum accounts temporarily, and stopped blogging. I didn’t miss it. At all.

I don’t want to sound all self righteous about it or anything, but I think it’s time to disconnect online and reconnect in real life. Ironic that I’m posting this on a blog. On the internet.

So I say all that to say this… I’m not leaving permanently, but I am going to take a summer sabbatical… Warm weather is here, and I’m going to spend a LOT less time online and a lot more time outdoors, and interacting with the people who mean a lot to me. More time with my son… more time with my husband… and my parents… more time with new friends that I’ve neglected nurturing relationships with… more time working in my garden… more time riding a bike… more time at the beach… more time sitting outside in the cool of the evening with my family, sipping a cold drink and talking, or just looking at the stars…

If you feel challenged and inspired to do the same for the summer, go for it! You’ll like it. And the internet will still be here when the weather cools down and we need somewhere cozy and warm to hibernate to. If you need to get ahold of me, pop me an email (check out the contact page) and I’ll be sure to get back to you before winter is upon us…

Agonizing over Family Planning…

When I found out I was pregnant last January we had a family plan. This would be our last natural child, I would get my tubes tied after the baby was born, and when the baby was 6 months old we would start fostering a little girl between the age of 5 and 7. It was simple. It felt right.

Then I miscarried.

Then we got evicted and we are moving to a home that doesn’t have the required 3 bedrooms in order to qualify for foster care.

Suddenly it feels really complicated. Our answer to most problems is to make a list of pros and cons…

Pros to having another baby:

1. B and I would get to experience the pregnancy, labor, delivery, and new born phase of parenthood together for the first time in a loving supportive relationship. My son was 2.5 years old when B and I met, and I went through my entire pregnancy, labor, and delivery without a partner present. I reconciled with my ex when my son was 3 months old, but he was less than supportive and loving (understatement of the year award) through the new born phase, and then we separated and divorced when my son was 20 months old. I was a single parent until I married B when my son was 4.5 years old.
2. Our son would have a sibling, and the opportunity to grow up with another child without worrying the child would be leaving, as happens with a foster sibling.
3. Babies are lovely. They are sweet, dependent, innocent, and they love you unconditionally. There’s nothing like waking up to a baby snuggled up to my breast for morning milkies, grinning up at me with milk dribbling out the side of their mouth. All the firsts are so precious  – first laugh, first word, first step, first kiss.

Cons to having another baby:

1. I hate being pregnant. I am extremely miserable, fatigued, and have chronic pain in my hips and back from the day of conception. The whole 40 weeks I feel like I’m in a daze and am unable to connect with anyone emotionally until I give birth and all those pregnancy hormones rush out of my body.
2. I’m terrified I’ll have another traumatic miscarriage.
3. I’m unsure we’ll even be able to get pregnant again with mine and B’s combined fertility issues, and the constant roller coaster of hope and dashed hope is very hard on us emotionally.
4. I’m terrified I’ll have another 80+ hour labor and delivery, but am too educated and knowledgeable about the negative effects of medical intervention to compromise on anything less than a natural home birth.
5. After having a child who has multiple serious life threatening food allergies, a speech delay, sensory issues, severe eczema and asthma, I’m terrified I’ll have a baby with truly major health issues or complications and am not confident I have what it takes to deal with that.
6. There will be a minimum 7+ year age gap between our son and the new baby, so will they even have much of a relationship? By the time the baby starts school, our son will be a teenager, likely with other interests.
7. Even if we move into a 3 bedroom home, foster parenting will be put on hold until the baby is at least 6 months old (their policy).
8. We are attachment parents who believe very strongly in breastfeeding, co-sleeping, child led weaning, baby-wearing, and no daycare or babysitters until baby is weaned. Having a baby is a huge emotional and physical commitment for us – but more specifically me. We just signed an extended lease on a business commercial space and in order to afford it, I need to work in the salon booking appointments, and doing reception, bookkeeping, marketing, and admin. Baby would have to come to work with me, which is possible, but not an ideal arrangement by a long stretch, especially given the line of work – people come to a hair salon/spa to be pampered, and babies don’t generally fit into that equation.
9. We have a very full busy, and often hectic, life and adding sleep deprivation into the mix is not appealing.
10. Babies cost money (clothes, cloth diapers, car seat, slings, etc) which means less disposable income for replacing our VERY old car, holidays and travel, and purchasing our first home.
11. We are in our mid and late 30′s and when the baby leaves home after graduating high school (or college) we’ll be less than 10 years away from retirement.

So there are the hard cold facts and emotions about what we are agonizing over. Making a list of pros and cons doesn’t help because it’s such an emotion-driven decision to make. We have gone round and round and round and can’t come to a conclusion. Most people we talk to suggest we just use BC and not do anything permanent, but quite honestly there are few BC options available for us personally, for private reasons I won’t get into, and we need some kind of resolution.

My head says I should get my tubes tied. My heart says wait. Do we go with logic and reason, or heart and emotion? We would love for our friends and family to weigh in with your thoughts. We just ask that you please be sensitive and thoughtful in your response as this is a very vulnerable topic for us…

A Mom’s Love

Today my son was asking to look at his baby pictures and I came across this one of me holding him when he was around 3.5 months old. I remember just absolutely delighting in this little man that God gave me. He was just so darn cute and sweet… Look at him in his little man outfit. I want to reach into that picture and kiss those little round cheeks again.

Then I remembered a picture I have of my mom holding me when I was around the same age my son was in the above picture… It does my heart good to see my mom’s delight in me as a baby, and makes me miss her all the more.  Every year as Mother’s Day is upon me, I wish my mom had the chance to delight in my son.