meditations of a blueberry

Photo by Snow Pea Portraits. Thanks Jen! I have a confession to make, and it makes me feel like a fraud. The past couple of months I have talked about our journey trying to conceive and how my friends' pregnancy announcements have affected me. And the whole time, I've been keeping a secret. I am pregnant and due in early June! Yes, you read that right. I have suspected this was so since my sister's Mother Blessing when I was in Golden, and I found out for sure on Monday, October 3.  So I have known for almost 2 months! And I continued to write, and act, as if I wasn't.  To be fair, those posts are true. I have felt (and feel) every word of every one of those posts.  Oddly, being pregnant almost made it harder for me to hear the announcements of others. Like my news was not so special anymore because they had the same news. I know. It doesn't make any sense to me either. I feel slightly deceitful, but I needed to keep my news in for the first bit and I didn'...

Nothing prepared me for what breastfeeding a toddler would entail. Nothing. Not a book, a website, or any advice from well meaning friends prepared me what it would be like to nurse a toddler. It has been 16 months of breastfeeding for E and I. At the start, it was hard because we were learning "how" to do it. Breastfeeding is a skill, and regardless of what anyone says about it being a "natural process", it doesn't come naturally for everyone. We struggled through the first months with me saying several times that I just wanted to make it to 6 weeks, then to 8 weeks, then to 12 weeks, until finally I realized I had stopped counting. Luckily, we didn't have any major latch issues, but we dealt with thrush (OUCH), overactive letdown and overproduction. Gentian violet took care of the thrush while painting E's face (and my nipples) bright purple. Block-feeding took care of the overactive letdown. I pumped, and pumped, and pumped to save all that precious e...

Back in September, we had the honour of doing another photo shoot with my friend Jen from Snow Pea Portraits . I have had the pleasure of being in front of her camera twice before, once for family portraits and once for boudoir photos. So I knew that not only were we going to have a great time, but the pictures were going to be fantastic. The shoot did not disappoint. We headed to Fort Edmonton Park for the last Saturday of the season. The colours of fall permeated the park. It was gorgeous. And Jen knows just how to work with people. Instead of forcing them into unnatural poses, she works with their behaviours and natural inclinations. It makes for a much more comfortable shoot not only for the adults, but for the little ones as well! Thanks again, Jen, for the amazing photos! Not only did we have a great time, but she had all 500 and some photos ready for me THE NEXT DAY. This girl is good. There are so many fabulous photos, that I had a hard time choosing my favourites. B...

I hate waiting. I was not blessed with endless patience when it comes for waiting for things to happen. I can be patient with children (a must as a parent and teacher!), but I get so annoyed waiting for things. I can't even wait to give gifts at birthdays! It makes me feel like I am stuck in place with nowhere to go. As Dr Seuss puts it: "You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place. The Waiting Place…for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting. Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to ...

Last night, I got to go out to celebrate a good friend at her surprise bachelorette party.  We arrived and visited while we waited for her to make her way there. She had to be convinced to come over, but I think she's glad she did! So many women were there to celebrate her!  There was a yummy spread of food brought by all the guests, from cake pops to 7 layer mexican dips to meatballs. I brought Bacon Wrapped Pineapple and they were a BIG hit. It was the first time I made them, and I can guarantee I will be making them again. In case you're interested, here's where I got the recipe from. It's super easy, and super delicious. I'll post the recipe at the bottom of this post too. After the potluck portion of the party, I had to come home to put E to bed. I loved how smiley he was when I got home! It was the first time mrblueberry had to do dinner with E without me, and E sure looked like he had had fun with his Daddy. Then I went to pick up another friend and we dro...

What do you do when you have something you really want to share with people, but can't share it for one reason or another? I have been doing a lot of thinking since the pregnancy announcements of last week, and if I were to get pregnant, I don't think I would be able to share the news right away. Sure, I would want to. I know I would want to! But with the experience of the miscarriage, I don't think I would be able to. I still remember the raw emotion as we had to tell person after person how we lost the baby. For that reason, we waited to share the news with E with family until 12 weeks, and with the world until 14 weeks after we heard the heartbeat for the first time. But I don't know if I will be able to wait that long whenever God chooses to bless us again. What would I say to everyone who continues to ask me how "trying" is going? (Which, off topic, is one of the weirdest questions you can ask someone. I mean, really, you are asking how my sex life is! A...

When I was younger, I wrote a lot of poetry. I have books and books full of poems that I wrote. I even had one poem published in a real poetry book. Most of the poems were full of teen angst and teen love, but occasionally, I would write a few that were not. As I got older and busier, I stopped writing so often. Now, I rarely find the time (or feel inspired) to write a poem. That makes me sad. I miss writing poetry. I miss the release of emotions that happens as you write a good poem. Should I make the time to actually write a poem? I don't know. Whenever I try to do that, I come up with nothing. I seem to only be able to write poetry when it just "comes to me." But maybe that is due to the fact that I do not try enough. What if I put the time aside to write more often? We will see. In the meantime, check out my poems here .

I realized something today. In the midst of family and friends on Thanksgiving weekend, I realized that I am a very blessed woman. I have fabulous friends who know just the right things to say at just the right times. I have family who I know would be there for me in a heartbeat if I ever needed them to be. I have a husband who is not only my best friend, but is my confidante and lover and treats me so. I have a son whose very smile brightens up the worst day or night. I am able to have pets and both of them are in tune with me and know when I need extra snuggles. I live in a time where I get to choose whether or not I want to return to work after having a baby. I get to go and make myself heard in an election by voting. If I am cold, I can turn on the furnace and not have to choose between heat or food. I don't have to worry about stepping outside to gunfire, or landmines, or some terrible disease. My biggest concern is not whether or not I will have enough food and water to give ...

For the last six months, we have been trying to conceive baby #2, and I am still breastfeeding E. Luckily (or unluckily depending how you look at it), my period returned at four months post-partum with E and has been regular-to-the-day ever since. I figured this would make things easy and we would conceive quickly. I was wrong. Every month I find myself waiting and listening to my body and hearing things that aren't there. Every little twinge or nauseous feeling makes me think, "oh, this is the month!" And every month, I am disappointed. We have had more sex in the past six months than we have had in the past 2 years! You would think this would be a good thing, but the problem with trying-to-conceive sex is the pressure. There's no, "I'm tired, let's just do it tomorrow" when you are trying to make sure you catch that magical ovulation day. In the grand scheme of things, I realize six months is not that long. It took us 8 months the first time to get...

There is something refreshing about the fall in the mountains. I can't quite put my finger on it, but after being in BC for 4 days, I feel lighter. Like all of my worries and concerns just floated away with the morning fog or was washed away by the mountain showers. While I agree that a lot of rain anywhere can be depressing, a little mountain rain is nothing like rain in Alberta. Mountain rain refreshes my soul. It washes away my insecurities. In the fall, the mornings are usually foggy; however, by noon it has usually lifted. In that time, the sun's rays shine through the fog as if from heaven themselves, as if their touch turns the leaves from green to gold.  The gold and copper leaves of fall remind me that even in death there is beauty. Here are a few pictures from my drive through the mountains: The trip to BC was fabulous. E cooperated for the drive (for the most part), and we made it there in record time--6 hours with one 20 minute stop for lunc...