Eleni's New Bed

Hello!

Hopefully by now you're all slowly waking up from your holiday food hangovers. But if you're anything like me, just when you're starting to feel human again after filling your face with everything in sight, you see something else that looks delicious and you attack it like you've been stranded in the Sahara desert for weeks. Then you end up right back at the beginning...lying on the couch, sweating, feeling like an over-stuffed pig and asking yourself, "why, Why, WHY!!??!!" 

This is followed by a very serious pep talk..."Next time you're going to remember how horrible this feels and you WILL use some self control"...which of course will inevitably fail and you will end up lying on the couch again, suffering and hating yourself for having absolutely no concept of self control.

God I love the holidays!!!

Seriously though, Christmas was really good this year. It was the first Christmas I've had in Molyvos where I didn't feel so homesick that I was just waiting for all of it to be over. I still felt a little homesick of course but it was much easier to deal with this year, thanks to Eleni. Being only 4 months old, obviously none of it made any sense to her at all and it was all just like any other day but I still had so much fun telling her that Santa was coming and singing Christmas songs to her. Watching her open presents was really cute too. Her hand coordination has gotten really good over the last month so when we showed her how to tear the wrapping paper off of presents....I'm pretty sure if she could talk she would say that that was the funnest thing she's ever done in her entire life! What was in the paper, she couldn't have cared less about, but ripping up the paper was just so awesome and then trying to put the paper in her mouth...and even succeeding sometimes when Mommy and Baba weren't paying attention...yeah I would say she's already counting down the days til next Christmas.

And we get to do it all over again tomorrow and January 1st because it's now officially Greek Christmas YAY!! 

Christmas and New Years as we know it is reversed in Greece...sort of. Christmas here is celebrated more like New Years and New Years is like our Christmas. Are you confused yet? So on  December 24th and 25th they still get together with family and friends and have a big feast but you don't give out presents. Some people do but Antonis tells me that that's only something that's started happening in recent generations because of...well...us. Westernization basically. Anyway, the traditional December 24th and 25th involves eating a lot of food and going out and drinking way to much with your friends. December 31st is when Saint Vasilis (Greek Santa Claus) visits and leaves presents for everyone, and January 1st is like our Christmas morning. You wake up, open presents and start eating. And you eat and eat and eat until...well we've already talked about that.

So tomorrow is New Years Eve and it's also kind of like Christmas Eve over here. For Antonis and I, we'll be celebrating like it's New Years Eve...hopefully. That's the plan anyway, I'll let you know what happens because we don't have any solid plans yet. All I know is Eleni will be having her first sleep over with Yiayia and Papous. And yes, Mommy is freaking out a little. It won't be a full over-night though, we'll be picking her up when we come home from whatever it is we end up doing but anyway...getting back to my point. Tomorrow we'll do the usual New Years Eve stuff and on January 1st we'll go to his parent's house for a big holiday lunch and we're going to eat way too much while Eleni rips up more wrapping paper and ignores the presents inside of it. It should be fun! 

It's getting a bit late here so I'll move on to talking about what I had originally planned. I always do that! I have a basic idea of something I want to tell you about and then suddenly I find myself writing a freaking novel about everything else other than the thing I wanted to talk about originally!! I don't know how that happens but anyway.....

So, the thing I wanted to tell you about...or actually I just want to show it to you...is Eleni's new bed!!

Finally she's moving out of her bassinet and into her "big girl bed." Technically it's not a big girl bed since it's a crib but she gets so excited when we call it her "big girl bed" so that's what it is now. Anyway, I want to give a massive thank you to my parents and my Aunt Joan for sending us the money to buy it. We are sooooo thankful and so is Eleni because she absolutely LOVES her new bed. We also had enough left over to buy a new "big girl car seat" which I don't have a picture of but I promise I'll get one. So, thank you thank you thank you THANK YOU!!! We love you, you're the best!!

So here's the crib we picked out...

 As you can see, it's in our bedroom. I still feel like she's too small to be in her own room....oh wait, we don't even have a bedroom for her!! How could I forget?! Or actually we have a room for her...if you remember, it was the room I was desperately trying to fix up for her while I was pregnant...but it was never finished and is still an ugly storage room. Right! That's why we're all sleeping like sardines in a tin can!

Ok, I'm joking...but only a little bit.

I do actually think she's still too young to be in her own bedroom

But I'm also SUPER ANNOYED that the room that I had planned to have ready for her at least 1 month before she was due, is still a huge mess and nowhere near looking like a baby's bedroom. 

In fact, we're still waiting for the carpenter to build the change table we ordered in August! 

But anyway, I'm not going to talk about that anymore because I'm just going to get pissed off...and I ran out of wine so...moving on

Oh, before I move on...please excuse my messy bedroom! 

I had to hang the laundry up inside because it was too windy outside again...and I still can't face my neighbour since the last windstorm when my nickers ended up in her orange tree so this is my solution

The very cute mobile my parents brought over for Eleni. Finally we can use it! And Eleni already loves it!

Cuuuute! And it also has a drawer on the bottom which is nice. We need all the extra storage we can get!

And this is what Eleni looks like as of about 30 seconds ago. I know, I know, why isn't she sleeping in the new crib? She loves the crib...she loves waking up in it, sitting in it, playing in it while I brush my teeth or get dressed or whatever...but she doesn't love being put down in it until she's so totally asleep the she doesn't notice she's being put into bed. It's not the crib's fault, she's always been like this. So she falls asleep in the relax chair and then when she's totally asleep, I carry her into bed. 

I know. I'm spoiling her. I need to fix this sooner rather than later. 

Meh, it'll be a new year's resolution I guess.

Here's a picture of our tree lit up. 

The other pictures where during the day and a Christmas tree just isn't in all it's glory until it's dark and the Christmas lights are on

And this is a really sweet ornament my Mom sent over. It's a baby's first Christmas ornament. 

It says "Love at first sight!"

So true!

Ok I better stop rambling on now and get some sleep so I can actually bring in the new year tomorrow night with my eyes open.

Happy New Year everybody!! 

I wish you all the absolute best of the best in 2013!

Talk to you next year!

Merry Christmas

Don't Mess with Mommy

Hey guys,

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. Things have been busy busy busy around here and I've been so exhausted at the end of the day that most of the time I don't even have the energy to pick up my wine glass...Yeah. It's that serious.

I can't remember what happened last week which means it was probably nothing important to catch you up on, so I'll just skip ahead to this week.

Unfortunately Papous wasn't feeling very well again. So Monday my parents in law took him to the doctor to get checked out and the doctor said to immediately go to the hospital. It's his heart again so to hear that he went straight from the doctor's office to the hospital was a bit scary. He's totally fine and back home again now but he stayed at the hospital from Monday until today so the doctor's could monitor him and make sure there wasn't anything serious going on. I've asked a few times what the problem was and I've just been told he had water on his heart....I've never heard of such a thing but then again I've never known a 90-something year old man with a pacemaker so I just took it as that and didn't ask anymore questions. My mother in law was of course the most worried out of everyone so she stayed with him in the hospital. She slept on a chair beside his bed for nearly an entire week! I really don't know how she did it but she called today to check on Eleni and she said she was fine. I asked her if she was tired and she said "No no no, I'm fiiiiine"....how is that even possible? I'd be comatose for at least 2 days. She's either super human or she's lying. My guess is she's lying but not in the bad way, just in the way that she doesn't want anybody to make a big deal out of the massive sacrifice she just made to be there for her Dad. So we won't tell her this but I think we should all give her a little nod of respect for being amazing.

Since Olympia was in Mytilini with Papous that meant Antonis and Lefteris were opening the restaurant every morning at 9am. That doesn't sound like such a big deal but when they're just closing up at about 2am, 9am arrives way too soon. And since Antonis has been leaving for work early in the morning, that means I've been doing double duty in the Mommy department. 

Needless to say, we all have massive dark circles under our eyes and any one of us could snap any second. I did snap actually, but I'll tell you about that in a minute.

Anyway, we're all fine and healthy so that's the most important thing.

Speaking of health, Antonis and I took Eleni to the doctor on Monday as well. She'd been really fussy and just not her usual happy self so I thought something had to be wrong. On top of that, she kept rubbing her right ear so I was kind of worried she had an ear infection. Either that or we're beginning the teething phase. Lovely!

Our usual doctor wasn't on duty on Monday so unfortunately we had to see The Nursing Nazi. I can't stand this woman. She's rude, she's not good with Eleni and all she ever wants to do is talk about is breast feeding. Unfortunately (to use that word for the 500th time) I haven't been breast feeding Eleni for about 2 weeks now. Just after 3 months she started refusing to nurse and unfortunately (501 times) my breast pump decided to stop working at exactly that time so I couldn't even pump bottles of breast milk for her. So we made the switch to formula, which I absolutely hated doing and I cried for 3 days. I know it's not the end of the world, I know plenty of very healthy babies who were formula fed and I absolutely don't judge anyone that chooses formula over breast milk, but I really thought I'd be able to feed her to at least 6 months, maybe even a year. So I had a very hard time dealing with this. Eleni on the other hand is perfectly happy SO, life goes on. Anyway, when The Nursing Nazi found out about this she just couldn't let it go. "Oh what a shame this baby isn't being breast fed. You have to do what's better for the baby and the bottle is never better. You have to try! You have to try!"........

Seriously? As if I didn't feel bad enough already and then I have this evil bitch making me feel worse. So I did what any level headed person would do in my situation. I stuck my finger in her face and ripped her apart! "Of course I tried! I tried everything I possibly could try and it didn't work! I didn't want this! I didn't ask for this! But this is how it is and I'm dealing with it the best way I can! I'M DOING THE BEST THAT I CAN! And how dare you even for a SECOND think you can put me or any other woman down about giving formula to their baby! HOW DARE YOU! A good doctor would be supportive and understanding in this situation! Now do your job properly and look in my daughter's ear so we can get the F*@% out of here!"......

I think Antonis was a little worried we were going to get thrown out thanks to my sudden hostility but he stepped back and let me do it anyway. He's a good husband like that. And besides, she totally deserved it and I don't even feel a little bit guilty about it. But unfortunately (502) I think I might have rattled her a little too much because after she checked Eleni out she told us what we needed to do to take care of her nose.....idiot.

We left. There just wasn't any point after that. We had an appointment for Wednesday with our regular doctor anyway so we just packed Eleni up and went home. When we saw Eleni's doctor on Wednesday I told her that I've had to switch over to formula....she said, "That's ok. Don't worry about it, you've done very well."

I love her.

She said Eleni's ear is totally fine, there's no infection so it's possible that she's starting to teethe a little early or she's just been feeling fussy and the rubbing the ear is just her funny little habit. We'll have to wait in see but it was good to know that she's perfectly healthy.

Other than all the health stuff going on we put our Christmas tree up finally!!! And just as I'm typing that I'm realizing I haven't even taken a picture of it yet. I'll do that tomorrow so you can see it. Eleni loves it! She's amazed by anything sparkly. Her future husband better have a good job to support her obsession with sparkly things. 

I also somehow found time to bake some Christmas cookies. The house smells like Christmas so I'm finally in the holiday spirit. Now if only we could get some snow......

Well, I'm done for the day. I can't even be bothered to edit this post so hopefully you all manage to wade through the typos and run-on sentences and various other grammatical errors. 

Here's some pictures from  this week

 Eleni with her Papous in the restaurant. I nearly snapped this day as well. This stupid woman thought it was a good idea to dip Eleni's soother in honey and give it to her. I kept it together though and instead gave that woman a good healthy dose of passive aggressive snobbery. 

She won't be doing that again.

This is from last night when Antonis got home from work. 

Miss Eleni decided it was playtime instead of bedtime.

We shouldn't have done it but we allowed it just this once...she's just too darn cute to say no to! 

When Antonis sat her like this on his leg I started killing myself laughing because she looked like she was driving a motorbike. 

Ohhhhhh how easy it is to amuse the sleep deprived.

Eleni got to sit in her 'big girl chair' for the first time today! She thought it was pretty cool. 

Here's a little video of it...she's so serious when she's trying new things 

The Frog

I think it's finally time to tell you about the frog....

When I was 23 I started having this reoccurring dream about a little girl and her little stuffed frog. It was always the same dream: a little girl about 3 or 4 years old, skipping around the room, happily humming to herself, holding onto a stuffed frog.

She never said anything to me and I never said anything to her. I'd just watch her skip and listen to her hum the same song again and again.

She had brown hair that was just a little bit curly on the ends and the curls would bounce with every skip. She had brown eyes and olive skin. So cute. So happy. So perfect...but then every parent thinks their child is perfect right?

I really don't know why I always had the feeling that she was mine since we never interacted with each other at all, but there was a definite feeling that this was my little girl.

Of course at 23 years old....I panicked. After the first 2 or 3 dreams I started thinking "Oh my god, am I about to get pregnant??!" I was pretty settled at the time: I had a good job, owned my own house and car, had the same boyfriend for years. Even though I was in a good position to have a baby, I totally wasn't ready.

So yes, I panicked. No, I more than panicked. I totally lost my shit. And I couldn't even tell anyone about it because they'd just think I was crazy. Why would anyone believe that I was dreaming about my future child? What was I going to do, just casually bring it up during Friday night drinks? "So how was your week?" "Oh ya know, the usual. Work was good, I finally painted the shelves in the pantry, I couldn't BELIEVE who got kicked off of Survivor this week. Oh, and I saw my future 4 year old child".....um, no. That wouldn't have gone over well. They probably would have blamed it on the Friday night drinks and staged an intervention right then and there.

So instead, I did what any normal minded person would do. I started analyzing it. After channeling my inner Freud my conclusion was, "She can't be mine. She has dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin." I have brown hair but it's not particularly dark, my eyes are green and my skin is pretty pale. My then boyfriend: blond hair, blue eyes. "It's just a stupid dream Tara. Calm down."

So I calmed down.

But the dreams didn't.

At least once every couple of months I could count on a visit from the little girl with the stuffed frog.

Eventually the blond haired, blue eyed boyfriend and I broke up, and the next boyfriend: red hair, blue eyes. Nope. Still doesn't fit. But why was still having this dream?

When I was 27 I applied for a semester abroad through my university and was accepted. I was on my way to Greece! What was I studying? Byzantine somethingorother?....whatever, it was basically a holiday with a bit of mandatory reading and a lot of sleeping off hangovers on the beach. THE best summer of my life but anyway, that's another story for another time. During my 2 months in Greece living like a Bohemian (my Aunt's words, not mine...I'm still not sure what it means but it's probably not very complimentary) I met Antonis. Ohhh Antoni. It was a whirlwind summer romance and  I fell madly in love with this crazy Greek man. But we all know how summer romances end. They end. As much as I didn't want that to happen I couldn't see how it could possibly work. But I didn't care, I ignored that thought and carried on with my crazy Greek man. In August I came back to Canada but Antonis and I had decided that we'd stay together and I'd come back that December for a visit.

I didn't see the little girl with the frog all summer. Actually, for the first time in 4 years I'd forgotten about her.

Back in Vancouver one October morning I woke up suddenly from a dream, completely covered in sweat and nearly hyperventilating. In the dream Antonis and I were sitting on his couch in his living room, watching a soccer game. The game was very vivid in the dream, which didn't make sense at the time because I couldn't care less about soccer. Anyway, one of the teams wore green shirts with a four-leaf clover on it. All of a sudden....I heard the humming....then I heard the little skipping feet....then suddenly there she was, skipping and humming around the couch with her little stuffed frog. She stopped in front of Antonis, crawled up into his lap, grabbed his face between her little hands and said "I love you Daddy." And he said, "I love you too kouklitsa" and he gave her a kiss on her forehead.

When I'd finally recovered a bit I started analyzing. It can't be....could it? She has dark hair like him. She has dark eyes like him. She has dark skin like him. And actually, she really looks like him.

I was totally stunned. I didn't know what to think, I was freaking out, I was confused, but also kind of happy because finally I might know what these dreams were all about. Maybe. But I still told myself, it's just a stupid dream Tara. Calm down.

I talked to Antonis all the time but I didn't tell him anything about the dreams. How could I? He'd think I was insane. But I couldn't hold it in anymore, I had to talk it over with someone. So I told a few of my friends who had been to Greece with me and knew Antonis. Thankfully, they didn't try to put me in a mental hospital or stage an intervention. Actually they all reacted really positively. And after telling them, I finally started to think that maybe the dreams were true.

In December I came back to Greece, realized I was still totally madly in love with the crazy Greek man, and he was with me, so we had The Marriage Talk. The Marriage Talk went on for a few days and one of these days I decided to tell him about the dreams. I was totally freaked out about how he was going to react but for some reason I needed to know how he'd react.

So I told him.

He was quiet for a VERY long time.

Then he said, "Who was playing?"

Excuse me, what now? Was he not even listening to what I just said?! So I said, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHO WAS PLAYING??!!"

"The football teams. Who was playing?"

"I don't know, I don't watch football, I don't know anything about it!" and I was so totally pissed off that he'd ask me that since it clearly had nothing to do with what I was telling him. Then I remembered the green shirts and the four-leaf clover emblem, so I told him that.

His mouth dropped. "That's Panathanaikos! How did you know about Panathanaikos?!"

"Panathawhat? What the hell is that?"

He explained that Panathanikos is one of the most popular soccer teams in Greece, which I now know very well but didn't have even a clue about at that time.

After that he said something like "well I guess we're having a baby!" and I said something like "NOT RIGHT NOW, ARE YOU INSANE?!?!" I still find it funny that after months of not wanting to say anything to him because I was afraid he'd think I was insane, and the conversation ended with me calling HIM insane....

After that day I still had dreams about the little girl with the stuffed frog...our little girl with the stuffed frog...but now I would see her at all different ages, in different settings, and she would talk to me. She'd talk to everyone actually, she never stopped talking! Sometimes we were sitting at the restaurant eating dinner, her as a baby in a high chair getting mushy food all over her face and in her hair. Sometimes she was twirling around the room in a pink tutu telling me all about what happened in ballet class that day. But wherever and whatever was happening, she still always had the little stuffed frog with her. The morning after every dream I would wake up and tell Antonis what she was doing the night before and he would listen and smile and then crack some joke or another about it to make us both feel a little less insane.

So now our beautiful little girl is here! She can't hum or skip yet, but her hair is definitely brown, her eyes are green right now but they're getting darker all the time and might be brown eventually, her skin isn't that dark but it will be darker than mine. And she looks like him.

Oh. And she has the little stuffed frog.

Mr. Frog is her favourite. He was a present from my mom....who didn't know anything about him or this story until right now.

Just Hanging Out...

Ok, just as I was typing 'Just Hangin' Out' and about to say how nothing much is going on around here these days...Antonis nearly burns the house down.

We're fine. The house is fine. Everything is totally fine. Except for maybe Antonis ego.

I've been telling him for weeks not to use gas to light the wood stove (it's not gas, it's a alcohol based cleaning fluid that's flammable but same idea)...anyway.

I told you so.

SO...I better go outside and see if my door mat is on fire

http://youtu.be/_VUY_gvSdKY