This blog has taken me 6 months to finish and post. That's my title. :/

 I've had over a year to plan and prepare myself for this day.  I even went through a nesting phase, maybe reverse nesting?  Is that even a thing?  I meal planned and prepped a bunch of dinners and I cleaned out closets.  Reorganized the pantry and told Mike how I really, really need a new mud room.  He rolled his eyes pretty hard at that request but as these crib midgets grow so do their snowsuits and messiness factor.  I donated tons of old clothes that I thought would miraculously fit me once I was nearing my return to work.  Spoiler: they didn't fit.   I ride a bike that goes nowhere almost every day but that doesn't fit me into pre pregnancy clothes.  I purged and cleaned and donated clothes, toys, old foot massager things; anything I thought that was cluttering my brain and going to interfere with my next chapter. 

Turns out doing all of that did none of those things.  My life is still a walking disaster- day in, day out.   And I have really embraced it.   

We had taken Ellie to daycare for a few days in Decmember to "practice" before it was the real thing. I dropped her off and didn't even cry.  She sure did.  I've never seen a one year old look so sad and so confused but that girl had it down pat.  

We spent the next two weeks celebrating Christmas, New Years and Mike's birthday.   A whirlwind of a holiday and then it's over.  Just like that almost 14 months off of work and it's done.   I put the kids to bed with a very heavy heart.  A new beginning for us, full of routine and change, the last time I return to work after a maternity leave.  The morning of my first day back to work was a breeze getting ready, and I owe at least half of that to my husband.  He was up at an ungodly hour and he made us all a big breakfast, the kids were up early (as usual). We sat down to eat, I had even set the timer on the coffee pot to be ready for 6am, and we talked to Maddy about her being a good helper at daycare.  I was on top of things.  I got the kids dressed, packed into the car and we were off.  I closed the garage door with a heavy heart.  I didn't want to do this.  I didn't want to leave my baby, I didn't want to sit in rush hour traffic and hurry home to get dinner on the table.  I wanted to watch the world go by as I taught my kid her body parts and new words.  I was dreading wearing a mask eight hours a day, and all the other Covid protocols I had to learn.  I wanted to drive back into the garage and ask God for a do-over.   I wanted to get on the highway and keep driving.  Anything but go back to work.  But off I went, dropping off the kids, one who was ecstatic to see her friends after a long break and another who was confused and sad, crying at the doorway as I walked away.  I sat in the car for a minute, eyes welling with tears and my heart full of regret.  I knew going back home and hiding under the covers wasn't going to win me any sympathy, not from my husband or my boss so I got a coffee and pulled into the work parking lot a few minutes later.   Have you ever driven somewhere and realized that you don't remember getting there?  Like you blacked out driving and were on autopilot the whole time?   That was me, sitting in my car having a bit of a cry before a deep breath.     

Nothing is normal at work, and as much as I complain about it right now, I have it easy.  The changes that occurred last year were drastic and constant.  Trying to keep up with government recommendations and then being shut down, but still having to come to work; all of these things that aren't normal.  Disinfecting between customers, not allowing people into the fitting rooms, increased online sales.  I am very grateful that I wasn't there to have to learn the changes, and implement them and the new procedures.  I'm glad I just got to come in and be taught what to do.  For some reason that whole process seemed overwhelming to me.   Maybe it's part of how I feel overall?  I'm not on the news all the time about this, it hasn't/didn't affect my life that much.  I was at home on maternity leave the whole time so I was busy with her, I wasn't galavanting around much anyway.   I've become accustomed to the changes now, but I surely don't like them.   Things we do (based on AHS and the government) don't make sense, they are contradictory and confusing.   A rather odd, albeit positive side effect of this is the amount of elderly people that have finally started to enbrace and use technology.  As I type this there is a lady, probably in her late 70's, on her iPhone using a QR code to scan the menu and now she's watching a video  - horizontally! At work I see  the customers who would normally pay cash actually using their iPhones to tap!   The FaceTime calls (which we all have seen go wrong) have smoothed out, we aren't looking up someone's nostrils as often as a year ago.  I'm sure things are going to get better but it feels like it's taking a really long damn time.  

With restrictions fluctuating we are back to takeout/pick up dinners, and a patio if it's not a freaking April snowstorm.  But that just doesn't have the same effect as having someone serve you and clean up and do the dishes!  We are cooking dinner 99% of the time and can I please tell you how much I LOVE that my husband cooks and is great at it.  I would shout it from a mountain top if I had any inkling to hike it first.  Dinners fall on both of us, meal plans and grocery shopping used to be a joint effort but lately he gets it out of the way because he can leave work to get it finished.  It does fall on Mike more often to cook as well as I'm not home until later most days,  but this is something I'd like to help change.  He does so much for us already I hate having him do so much more on top of that.  

Since I started writing this back in January lots has changed, lots has remained the same.   Alberta is reopening quickly (thank god) and we are almost at zero restrictions, maybe even as I write this we are passing the 70% vaccinated mark that Kenney has been flouting for a month.   I am so tired of it all.  Work, relationships, family, restrictions.   I am so sad that Ellie has never really been able to enjoy Treehouse, or that Madison missed out on 2 birthday parties.  But I promise you this, we will make up for all that this summer!   We will be frequent jumpers at Flying Squirrel, frequent sliders at Treehouse, frequent bouncers at Big Fun Inflatable Park, anywhere that entertains two very VERY busy children will get my hard earned money.   All. Of.  It.  West Edmonton Mall Waterpark, I'm looking at you.  I have said before that I am truly glad that Ellie won't remember any of this, and it's unlikely that Madison will.   My husband has a fantastic memory and can only go as far back as six, I have the memory of a goldfish and therefore can't comment.  I'm hoping this is the summer that a return to normal actually happens.  Also, I'm really fucking sick of all these damn sayings. "The new normal" "Quarantine, Isolation" "The next wave".  I welcome the day when I don't check Reddit for the newest case numbers update.  

Moving on!  Forget about Covid.

HOW. IS. MADISON. GOING. INTO. KINDERGARTEN. IN. TWO. MONTHS?!.

Sorry, not sorry for yelling.  I can't handle that this little spazzy ball of blond hair and deep brown eyes is starting school in the fall.   We are so proud of her, how smart she is, how great of a big sister she is, how much she has grown in the last year.  I look back at pics of Ellie and her a year ago and she was a baby herself.  If you're on my Facebook maybe you remember the video of her burping Ellie when she was just a few weeks old?  Well last night she put her to bed, all by herself - start to finish.  She is becoming a big kid in front of my eyes and I'm not ready for it.  I'm hoping to get her into summer camp for the month of August.  This is monumental for me, summer camp was the biggest deal of my whole year when I was young.  The experiences she'll have, the friends she will make, getting her prepped for new kids and new faces come September.    We had a Zoom call a few weeks ago to meet the teacher and get a tour of the school, which she bailed on halfway through (good thing we don't have to do online school like all the other parents - bless your hearts, each of you), but during said call there was a list of things the child should be able to do before September.  Madison was able to do all of them a year or more ago.   We looked at each other and shook our heads.   Partially at the kids who can't do such simple tasks, partially that she's already got it down.  I for a little while strongly tried to push a French Immersion program.  That didn't go as well as I had hoped.  We have considered skipping Kindergarten.  Much to our chagrin some very smart teacher friends of ours said don't do that.  I'll bet money that she'll be a teachers pet and an A student.   I hope she gets to be the girl who is chosen to show the new kid around (love you Ducky) and I know she'll be the kid who helps the ones who are struggling or she'll hug the kid who gets hurt on the playground.  Every parent wants this and believes this of their own child for sure, but would any of them admit their kid would also be the one to lead a burping chain or teach them how to jump from one piece of furniture to the next?  Mine will. ✋. 

Ellie Anne, now she's not currently winning any toddler puzzle competitions like her sister could have, but she is so precious in her own way.  She is loud and funny and cuddly and stubborn.  Her vocabulary is growing daily and she is... umm.. I don't know how to say it?   We used to say that Maddy has no chill.   She still doesn't, but Ellie is like no chill + no fear.  She'll climb up anything, using even just her finger strength to get herself up where she wants to be.  She'll also fall and not really cry.  For example, she fell off her stool the other day and dented our stainless steel oven - no judgment here from anyone, dad was there and it was split second.  The thing is she cried for a hot minute and then went back to life, mad that she couldn't keep trying to scale the side of the kitchen cupboards.  At a friends backyard bbq the other week she bailed down some wooden stairs and got right back up to try again, before trying to escape under the gate to the front yard.  Our friend, who has fathered three including two rough and tumble boys, declared as he pointed at her "that one's gonna be that one that keeps you going to the hospital".   I am proud to say we have not yet had an accident with either runt, but I'm sure the day will come.   Whether it's Madison and her new found love for climbing trees, or Ellie who just thinks she's invincible, someone may end up in a cast.  It's being a kid - skinned knees and white bum tan lines.  It's eating sand from the sandbox and learning to swim and staying up late and eating all the fruit you can get your sticky hands on. 

In this family anything is an adventure.💖