Nate's blue jay

On our morning walk to daycare, I pointed out a bunch of birds to Nate.

Me: Look at those birds Nate.

Nate: Oh yeah!  I see a blue jay!

Me: You see a blue jay?  Where did you see it?

Nate: On the grass, and on a car.

Me: How do you know about blue jays?

Nate: I went bird watching.

Me: You went bird watching?  Who did you go with?

Nate: With you dad!

Now, I don't know when this bird watching took place, but I have no recollection of it!  I've only ever seen a blue jay once, on the Sunshine coast, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't me that showed him a blue jay.  

Interesting the things he comes up with.  A few days ago, he was playing in his room and tripped and fell over.  I was in the other room and heard him start to cry, so I went over to see what was the matter.  

Me: What's wrong Nate?

Nate: I broke my leg.

For one brief moment I actually thought he might have broken his leg!  I had a vision of his little leg dangling uselessly from where the break was.  I was almost afraid to touch his leg.  But of course he hadn't broken his leg.  He'd barely scratched it, but he does have a flair for the dramatic.

I may need a name-tag

The following exchange took place at work. To protect the innocent, all names have been changed except for the author.

The cast:

Beth - a customer I've know for at least 2 years

Wanda - a co-worker

Justin - myself

The Scene:

A busy cafe in a hip Vancouver neighbourhood. It is night. The cafe is full, but most of the customers have been there for some time. There are only a few customers at the till placing orders. Justin and Wanda are manning the tills.

Beth (to Wanda):
Medium soy mocha to go please.

Wanda (to Beth):
Medium soy mocha to go. I'm sorry, but your name escapes me.

Beth (to Wanda):
Beth. It's OK, I can never remember any of your names.

Justin (to Beth):
But you remember my name don't you?

Beth (to Justin):
Of course I remember your name. You have the same name as my brother, I could never forget your name. You're the only other Moses I know.

Justin (to Beth):
What? What did you say?

Beth (to Justin, somewhat flustered):
Nothing, I didn't say anything bad. I just said you're the only other Moses I know.

Justin (to Beth):
But that isn't my name.

Beth (to Justin):
Your name isn't Moses?

(to Wanda) His name isn't Moses?

Wanda (to Beth):
Justin.

Justin (to Beth):
Justin.

Beth (to no one in particular):
Justin?

Justin (to Beth):
Justin.

Beth (to Justin):
But I've always known you as Moses, from the first day we met! Your name isn't Moses?!

And so it was revealed to me, that for the last 2 years or so, Beth was under the impression that my name was Moses.

This, of course, isn't the first time I've been called other names. For the longest time, strangers would call me Mike. Eventually, I found out that the Mike in question worked in the same neighbourhood. Apparently, I was a dead ringer for him. Curious, I went by his place of work one day and sure enough, there he was. There was no mistaking him, it was like looking in a mirror! It was surreal. I didn't dare go and say hello because I was sure the universe would implode.

In a curious coincidence, one of the regulars to the cafe also called me Mike. At first I just let it go, it didn't seem like a big deal. Before I knew it, a couple of years had gone by, and this person still thought my name was Mike. I didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise. How could I? So much time had passed, I didn't even know how to begin to explain that my name was not Mike.

As for Beth, I told her she could still call me Moses if she wanted to. It's only a name, and there are far too many Justins at work anyway!

The bed

This morning, I took the gate off of Nate's crib, and effectively turned it into a small bed. It's been something we've been meaning to do for awhile now, but obviously we were in no real hurry to implement it. I guess you could say we had thoughts of him falling out of bed, or getting up in the middle of the night and wandering around the house unsupervised.

Nate seemed pretty excited that he could get in and out of bed by himself now. He christened the 'new' bed by pulling off all his toys, pillow and blankies. Then he climbed on and proceeded to jump on the mattress, yelling 'I can bounce!'.

Needless to say I was a little nervous when it came time for his nap. But there was no bouncing. He just climbed on and lay down and said goodnight. I'm not sure how long he napped for, I had to leave for work. I wonder if he woke up and let himself out of his room?

I half expected to come home this evening and find him downstairs watching TV or eating a granola bar!

But I was only met at the door by Snoopy.

I guess we really didn't need to worry.

I'm your best friend

It's occurred to me that I have not mentioned Nate for some time now. Since he is the primary reason for this blog, I feel I am failing in my attempt to record the day to day happenings in his universe.

Recently he has taken to telling me that he is my best friend.

"Dad, I'm your best friend" or "I'm your best friend dad!".

Occasionally he will even tell me "Dad, you're my best friend".

I'd like to think that the latter is what he truly means, rather than the first two variants. Those kind of make it sound somewhat ominous, like I have no other friends or I really don't have a choice in the matter. It's all really very sweet though and makes me laugh every time he says it. Sometimes it makes other people who are within earshot laugh too, which is always fun.

I think it's special that he thinks of me and Patty in this way. He tells her this too, but I haven't heard him say it to anyone else. He probably won't admit to it when he is in his teens, but that's OK cause I have this blog to remember it! I of course tell him that he is my best friend. After all I do spend quite a bit of time with him, and we usually have lots of fun during those times. I say usually because it's not all fun and games. We do annoy each other every now and again.

On those occasions when he frustrates me to the point where I have to step back and just let it go, he'll usually come up to me and say "Dad, are you sad?". On one occasion a few weeks ago, he even said "I'm sorry, I make you mad". How can you stay mad at that? Plus, I do make him mad too so we're even in that department.

At the end of the day though, I guess I'm still his best friend. Or is he my best friend?

Sometimes nature really sucks

I found an injured bird on my walk with Snoopy this morning. Well, it was Snoopy that found it. I didn't notice it at first. Snoopy of course was sniffing around and I saw him pawing at something in the grass. Then I saw something move and I pulled Snoop away and saw it was a little sparrow. It was obviously hurt, lying on it's back and not able to get up. It had an odd red tinge to it's feather, blood maybe, I never did figure that part out.

A passerby held on to Snoopy while I picked up the bird. I haven't had much experience with birds. My parents-in-law have a cockatiel, and most of my interactions with it have consisted of it trying to eat my gold chain or earring. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I didn't expect it to be so light. It was so small and delicate, and it barely weighed anything. I could hardly tell I had anything in my hand.

It seemed incomprehensible that this was a living thing. And yet I could clearly feel it's heart beating against my hand. It still felt strong, and yet the poor thing could not move, and was breathing rather raggedly. Every now and then it would open it's eyes and look up at me.

It was a beautiful morning, the perfect fall day. The sun was out, the air was cool, and the light was just amazing. I sat down on the front stoop of a building, bird in one hand and Snoopy's leash in the other. I didn't quite know what to do.

I didn't think there was much that could be done for the bird. Part of me just wanted to put it out of it's misery, but I wasn't sure if I had it in me to do it. I thought of letting Snoopy have it. He'd been sitting very calmly next to me the whole time, he was obviously interested in it, but he was listening to me and being very well behaved. I wasn't sure if I wanted to see Snoopy kill a helpless little bird, and what if he didn't finish the job?

A small part of me just thought I was making a big deal out of nothing. After all it was just a little sparrow. It wasn't really anything special right? But I had picked it up, and I had it cradled in my hand, and I could feel it's heart beating. It was a living thing, it was hurt and I couldn't just leave it to die by itself right?

So there I sat in the sunshine, holding this poor bird, talking to it and stroking it. I don't know how long I sat there, but it seemed like a long time. Finally, someone walking by stopped and said as much as he hated it, he thought I would have to let nature takes it's course. I didn't want to just abandon it, but I knew I couldn't just sit there forever holding it either. So I placed it under some bushes, and walked home with Snoopy.

I can't tell you how many times I've had to stop myself from running over there to see if it's still there.

Let nature take it's course. It got me thinking about myself. If nature took it's course and no one intervened, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have made it much past 5. For one thing I was half blind as a kid. I kept falling down the stairs at home and it wasn't until I was 5 that they figured out I needed glasses! If we let nature take it's course I'm pretty sure half of us wouldn't be alive today. How come we hardly ever let nature take it's course when it comes to us?

I am not proud of what I did today, but I'm not sure if there was anything more I could have done. Then again, if I was lying hopelessly broken under a tree, I suppose I would want whoever found me to put me out of my misery. Given the way people are in those situations though, I suppose I would have better luck if a bear found me instead.

Fracking nature.

Because that last post was a downer...

A photo of Nate and Bree in the corn maze at the Pumpkin Patch, taken by Jaqueline Jacattack. Yeah, this makes me happy!

If I've seemed a little distracted lately, it's because I have been

I have not been able to keep much in my head of late. My mind is a jumbled mess of things that need to get done, things that should have been done, what lies ahead and the possibilities they bring.

I am alternatively excited, scared, worried, frustrated, and depressed. Occassionally I feel all those things at the same time. If I've looked stunned lately, it's probably because I was at the time.

This whole business of selling our condo and buying a house has been emotionally draining, and we still have no sale or a house! We've gone from being super excited about one house, to not wanting anything to do with it once we found out how much work it needed.

We have found another house, one that we are trying hard not to get attached to. But how do you not get emotionally involved when you're buying a house? What would be the point if you weren't? But we are running out of time, and it seems less and less likely that we will be able to sell our condo and secure this house before the deadline set by the sellers. So this morning we talked about the possibility of having to take our condo off the market and wait till the new year to sell it. It's been at the back of our minds for some time now probably, but it was the first we actually talked about it. Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but maybe it's better that way and I won't set myself up for a bigger fall.

Amidst all this, there is the the everyday things that still need to get done. I'm still trying to figure out where everything is in our place following the cleanup. We are living in this space, but trying to make it look like no one is living in this space. And we've still got a bunch of boxes in the living room of our neighbour Jean. She's been super this past little while, letting us store our stuff there, watching Snoopy while our place was being showed, and even letting us crash there.

It's all been a little chaotic, and I guess that's worn off on me a little. I feel like I'm swimming underwater most days. Swimming underwater in slow motion. I hope I get to come up for air soon. Maybe I need new drugs?