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hello hello! i'm cat, and this is my (our) blog. i write a lot about motherhood and try to find the creative in our day to day lives. i also may share photo sessions as they come my way or a photos series i may be doing as a personal project. maybe a new recipe we're all loving at the moment. instagrams and dr. seuss quotes. this is also a space for me to just write. i've always been a lover of words. grab a cuppa brew and have a browse. cheers.

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Dear Theo,

You, my little boy, are simply wonderful. We love you so much. You are so much fun, you are so happy much of the time and we love you. We just love you.

I’m sorry I’ve been a bad momma and have not written you letters every month as I intended. I just went through the archives and I wrote you letters and took your picture when you were first born, and then at 3 months, 4 months, 6 months and 9 months. Today you are 15 months. I would’ve actually been kinda on track had I written you a post at 12 months. But, I did take your pictures when you turned one. So, I half got the job done. I’ll post those below, because in the last three months, your hair has gone super light. Everyone who hasn’t seen you in awhile comments on your hair and how curly and light and beautiful it is. Just last weekend your daddy cut it and gave you a little mohawk, which makes you pretty darn cute.

You are pretty darn cute despite the scratches and bruises that occupy your forehead, knees and anywhere else on your body that makes contact with the ground, which is something that happens often. You have been up and running for quite some time now, about 4.5 months, but you still fall. A lot. Most of the time, you fall and pop right back up. So the times you cry, I know it must hurt pretty bad. You haven’t lost any teeth yet though, so you have that on your sister.

We joke about how you are our sensitive child. You are really attached to me right now, so on days you are feeling especially emotional and tired, you cry and throw a fit if I even try to go to the bathroom. You run after me and throw yourself at the door and cry until I open the door, scoop you up and cuddle you. And then the tears disappear. As much as I hate to see you sad, it makes me happy that I can make you happy. There will come a day when you won’t need me as much, so I’m taking what I can get while I can get it.

While you are definitely sensitive and sweet and even like to pick flowers and push them at my face to smell them, there are things about you that are all boy. All the falling and bruises, for example. But really recently, you have taken a huge interest in balls and airplanes. I don’t remember Evelyn loving either of those things as much as you do. When I bring out our mini green and white soccer ball, your little face fills with delight and it’s easy to see you can’t contain your excitement. It doesn’t matter that it’s nothing new and you’ve probably just played with it before your nap, that thing makes you happy. You’ll go “ahhhhh!” when you see it, with your mouth open real round before it breaks into a huge, toothy grin. We’ll be outside, most recently at Charleson Park where there is a basketball court you love to “shoot” at, and you will just kick and throw and roll and hold that ball till you are good and sweaty. It’s so funny to see you and your little beer belly jog around after that ball, you are surprisingly fast. The only thing that really can take your attention away from the ball is if a plane flies by, in which case you stop, listen and then look up while saying “ahhhh!” again, searching for it in the sky. That, or food. Food can always distract you.

Theo, I could go on and on about how awesome you are. Because, well, you are. You are so young and little and yet you already love your family so much. I know we are all you know, but you really do love your sister and your momma and daddy. I love it when you wake up before your sister and go to her door to try and get her up because you want to play with her (I actually don’t like that you try to wake her up, but I love that you love her). When she does arouse from her slumber, and she’s usually not the cheeriest when she wakes up, you light up and smile and blabber on in your baby language, you even try and give her hugs. It’s the sweetest.

Oh, one last thing. I can’t finish without mentioning your Lovey. Lovey is to you as Evelyn’s Snookie was to her until we lost Snookie and had to replace him with Samantha. Never again. The day I lose Lovey (knock on wood) will not be a good day. Let’s hope it never comes. But you love your blue Lovey. He sleeps with you, goes outside with you, calms you down and just makes you a happy boy when you are grumpy.

I love you, Theo. I will be back next month with another letter:)

Love,

Momma

Playing a bit of catch up here. Last pics I posted, you were 9 months. So, here you are at 10. I’ve decided that even if I don’t have “real” pics of both you and your sister, I’ll do my best to post every month and use Instagrams. Everybody loves an Instagram anyways. I do at least.

10 months, March 2012.

11 months, April 2012.

12 months, May 2012.

13 months, June 2012.

14 months, July 2012.

15 months, August 2012.

I’m not sure I even slept at all on my red eye last week from Vancouver to Baltimore, so at some point I just gave up trying and got to writing. I wrote another small article that was used in last night’s Whitecaps match day program, and just thought I’d share here. I started off, as I do most posts, not sure where it will end or really even what exactly it’s about or what I’m trying to say, and this is where I ended up…enjoy!

“YVR feels much different this time around. Instead of arriving here exhausted, overwhelmed, two kids in tow and unsure of where we’re going, I’m leaving calm, solo and to a place I’ve known my entire life. A best friend’s wedding calls me back to my roots, thus leaving Matt on daddy duty all weekend long. I’m curious to see the state of our apartment come Monday night. Or even more so, the state of daddy.

The light is reflecting off of the clouds on my 6:15 pm flight to LAX and my pink headphones sing out Maverick Sabre’s lyrics, “I need sunshine, I need angels, I need something good, I need blue skies…”, and I’m reminded that it doesn’t rain perpetually, although lately it has felt like it does. The initial excitement and wide eyed wonderment of living in a new place has worn off a bit; our carpets our now stained, I no longer reach for the bathroom light in the wrong place, our immediate surroundings are becoming more and more familiar and we have a pretty predictable routine governed mainly by nap schedules and temperamental toddlers. I’ve even started to feel a little homesick and restless, and have, on more than one occasion, wished for that hot Raleigh sun.

Perhaps it’s the fact that we are nearing the point in time in which we’d normally be moving on. For the last four years or so, every 5 or 6 months, we’d pack up our lives into a U-Haul truck and head to route I-95, each van being bigger than the last one as we aquired additional family members and thus, more stuff. We bounced between Baltimore and Raleigh per Matt’s contracts, and it became our way of life. We hit 5 months here in Van City on June 20th, and yet we have nowhere to go.

But what I’ve realized on this short stint away is that I really don’t want to go anywhere. It’s ironic, but my love affair with this city is actually rooted in exactly what can make anything feel mundane–the simple, day to day pleasures that I take for granted. I’ve never been able to walk to get our groceries before, or have my choice of about 8 different coffee shops and a handful of parks within convenient walking distances. The Canada Line has become my go to mode of transport to venture into downtown, and provides a form of entertainment for the kids as they think it’s the coolest thing in the world to ride the train. It’s not only an accessible city, but it’s an incredibly beautiful, clean one as well. I love walking across the Cambie Bridge to games and pausing just to take in the view, do I actually live here?! Or another favorite route of mine is to walk down 7th Avenue to Charleson Park with the kids. We end up at the waterfront and every step of the way is simply a happy walk. And when the sun is shining, that walk is even more magical.

Although I think I allow myself to succumb to the grass is greener syndrome more often than I should, I know that right now, having no place to go is exactly what we want and need.”

I finally took some one year pictures of Theo exactly at 13 months. Ha. Love this handsome little man!