{new york street art gallery}

I've been taking lots of walks downtown lately. Spring is actually happening now, and as the temperature inches upward I'm getting antsier and antsier to be out in it. In the colder months, I'm completely content to hibernate. I open the blinds and let the pale white winter light seep into the room like smoke. I sit in it, and I like it.

But if the sun is out, then I am too. And my favourite place "out" is downtown. Any downtown. Vancouver, LA, Edinburgh, Toronto, New York, London, Miami, Regina...

Regina happens to be the city centre I frequent most often these days--on account of living here and everything. It's Lilliputian. A few slight "skyscrapers", some traffic lights, a mall, a park, some restaurants. I like it though. It's big enough to make me feel small. It's city enough to attract some crazy people. It's small enough to make me feel big.

Anyway: I've been taking lots of walks downtown lately.

The other day, on one of these outings, I passed some graffiti on the side of  an office building that reminded me of a folder of pictures I have on my computer from my trip to New York last spring. I find that having some sort of malleable mission is the best way to explore a new place, so I'd taken my camera and gone out on my own one day specifically in search of interesting art on the streets. New York is home to a crazy lot of world class museums and galleries, but that day I decided that I wanted to be the curator of my own little art gallery.

(Don't you wish your city was this colourful?)

{these past two months took two seconds}

It's been two months since we met Sullivan for the first time. I think it's crazy that it's been that long. I think it's crazy that he ever wasn't here.

I remember the day we brought him home from the hospital, the sound of the key in the lock and how it seemed to echo into the empty house ahead of us. The clean floors and the neatly folded baby blankets. The waiting crib and inert rocking chair. Everything was there as we'd left it, but suddenly it felt like we were walking into someone else's home, in someone else's bodies, carrying someone else's kid.

I stood at the door and looked down at the tiny little person sleeping in his car seat. I pulled back the blanket and touched his wrinkly knees. I said, "Welcome home, baby," and then I cried and cried and cried because in all the years of waiting for him and dreaming about meeting him, I'd never gotten as far as picturing this moment.

It hit me, the sheer bigness of being his family.

I can't really describe the past 59 days very well. It's a blur of neon emotions. The two of us are often home alone, watching the days speed by from the couch or bed. I talk to him, sing to him, read to him. I haven't been to a show in ages; and leaving the house with him for an afternoon requires more preparation than I used to need to leave the country for a week. I've learned that I can't get too wrapped up in what I'd normally be doing or how fast I'd normally be doing it. This is a season outside of normal, and that's ok. I've learned to say "I get to" instead of "I have to", because the way you phrase your thoughts makes a big difference when it comes to diapers and ravenous baby appetites. I've learned how to survive on stupid amounts of sleep.

The weird thing is that sometimes, at three in the morning, I'm awake not because he needs me but because he's sleeping in my arms and I don't want to put him down. And I'm thinking, I'm so tired; this is ridiculous, I need to go to sleep... but I'm playing with his fingers and toes and watching his chest rise and fall and an hour will sneak by like that. He'll wake up and smile at me and there goes another thirty minutes.

I've learned that love is completely irrational sometimes.

{spring, finally}

What's that saying? The days are long but the years are short?
It feels like spring was just here. This year was a whirlwind and, like all good whirlwinds, we have come full circle and are right back where we started. It's just that now we're somewhere else entirely.

I walked over to Karlie's house this morning for birthday waffles (her daughter turned two today). There are still piles of snow everywhere, but they're shrinking and dripping and don't look so dang permanent anymore. The roads have turned to glass, and I can see another city on the other side.

This is the best time of year, not because we're where we want to be, but because we're actually on our way there now. The first glimpse of spring is so crazy beautiful to me.

So this afternoon I'm going to open all the windows and let it into every room. And I'll lay on the floor in the living room with the music up and sing along at the top of my lungs, and the neighbours will hear me and I won't even be embarrassed. They need to lighten up. Spring is coming.

{sullivan's room}

I ordered Sullivan's crib online from Best Buy. When the guy came to drop it off, I was home alone. He had an orange beard. He appeared perpetually confused and exorbitantly bored and looked over my shoulder instead of at my face when he talked to me. He said, "I got a crib or something in the truck for you."  

I smiled. "Awesome," I said. And then we stood there.

He shifted his weight. "I'm going to need some help carrying it in. It's pretty heavy."

"Oh, I'm here alone," I told him apologetically.

He didn't look surprised at this information. "Well, yeah. I just need a little help. It's, like, really heavy."

I looked down at my belly, which was roughly the size of a watermelon. "I'm not really supposed to lift heavy stuff," I said.

Now he looked surprised. "Oh. Are you pregnant?"

I nodded. "That's what the crib's for."

Setting up a room for someone who doesn't exist yet is a weird job. It's not like hosting an exchange student who arrives with bags of clothes and junk to unpack into your drawers and shelves and posters of their favourite bands to hang on your walls with sticky tack. You're getting ready for a naked, possessionless person who doesn't even have a favourite colour yet. You get to decide what their favourite colour is.

So Barclay built bookshelves and I loaded them with all of my favourite books; ones that I grew up reading and ones that I wished I'd grown up reading. We painted little pictures of all the bosses from Megaman II (Barclay's favourite video game) for the wall. We drew wallpaper and I made a mobile and Barclay hung a picture of Rush so that Sullivan will know who Geddy Lee is. I went to the thrift store on Dewdney and bought tiny 99 cent shoes and sweaters to fill the closet. Friends made stuffed animals and blankets for him and added to his miniature wardrobe. We didn't have a rug so I laid down the quilt I made for picnics instead.

Nurseries are more for parents than they are for babies, I think. Hopefully he digs it too, though.

{the state of my toes, for those who care}

The other day, when most of me came into the kitchen, my pinky toe stayed in the hallway for just a split second.

(Here, the word "split" is a terrible pun.)

There was a moment of the most blinding kind of pain, and I yelled to the empty kitchen, "RATS OUCH NO!" (Because I'm nothing if not completely eloquent in times of distress. Ask anyone.)

But kitchens are notoriously unsympathetic and I was greeted with stainless steel silence.

I looked down. In despair, I noticed that my littlest toe was now grossly separated from the rest of the pack and sticking straight out to the side. Like, if my foot was 'N Sync, that little pinky toe was Justin Timberlake. Solo.

I tried to wiggle it, just to see, which was a big stupid mistake.

I have to admit that I was a pretty big baby over it. Barclay came home to me laying on the couch with my foot on the coffee table making pitiful grimace-y faces. "It's broken," I said woefully. "It hurts more than anything, ever." Probably hyperbole.

But he humoured me, dutifully wrangling Justin into his rightful upright position and taping him to Lance Bass. (I'm pretty committed to this metaphor at this point.) Today, two days later, there is some sweet bruising going on, but I think the band is back together for the time being.

I just thought you'd want to know.