{literary love affairs...}

It's a cold rainy day in Ottawa today, so I've taken it as my cue to curl up and hibernate in the house. So I'm sitting in front of our fireplace with my Starbucks (not even Mother Nature can keep that part of my day from happening!!!) reading Where the Wild Things Are. The book was a gift to our son from one of my most favourite people in the entire world. Actually, a dear friend of mine recently hosted a baby shower for us in which everyone was asked to bring one of their favourite childhood books for our little boy. I can't even begin to tell you how amazing a gift that is to us!

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I need books like I need oxygen! Our house is covered with them! Our dining room, our living room, our nightstands, our dressers, our bathrooms, our family room bookcases...books are everywhere in our house and it's safe to say that I've had a pretty passionate relationship with each and everyone of them! I truly think that books are one of God's greatest gifts to humanity (you know, right up there with forgiveness, grace and peanut butter!); someone's life, imagination, musings and language, all beautiful bound and perfectly put on paper for the rest of us to get lost in. Few things in this world bring me quite as much joy as falling asleep at the end of the day to someone else's eloquent words.

"Oh how I love thee...let me count the ways..."

I don't like sharing my books though! I know that for many, this type of behaviour is nothing short of sacrilegious but for me, I simply get too attached to risk never seeing them again. My books have followed me through life at its very best and life at its very worst; during an especially difficult time in 2001, White Oleander became my only solace. I read Jane Austen for the first time as we travelled through Australia and Eat, Pray, Love is my ultimate comfort food. Basically, each of my books own a piece of my soul and the very thought of parting with them simply breaks my heart. So I just don't! Instead, they act as reminders of my countless literary love affairs that not only tell their own story...but a piece of mine as well.

I suppose it's needless to say that I do genuinely hope that our son develops the same love for the written word as his father and I have. When I consider how much books have shaped each of our lives, I have a really difficult time imagining a childhood without them. I'm still not entirely convinced that a life that hasn't yet experienced Harry Potter is a life fully lived!

That being said, thanks to our friends and family, our son is starting to give us a run for our money in terms of shelf space...and he's not even here yet!!!

Ours...

His...

Ours...

His...

So consider yourself warned little man...whether you like it or not...to every life a little Dr. Seuss must fall...!!!!

{the making of a nursery...}

I was never one of those kids that had to clean their room when they were little. I never had to clean it because I never let it get messy. While most of my friends had their weekly chore of having to pick up all of their clothes off the floor, I was actually quite the opposite; I was almost obsessive about my room. Everything had its place and its home and any change to that assigned space ended up being quite upsetting to me.

We moved a lot when I was young and I think that having my room the same and "in order" was my way of maintaining a sense of stability regardless of where we lived. It never failed; each time we moved, I would stay up as long as necessary to make my room appear as though I had never slept anywhere else. I would paint, I would organize, I would put pictures on the wall; despite our change of address, I had a way of making it the only room that I had ever known.

Even now, the necessity has never really left me.

When Steve and I moved into our new house two years ago, the very first thing we did after having moved all of our stuff was to paint and set up our bedroom. We were experiencing three entire floors of change and we felt that, at the very least, sleeping in "familiar territory" would make the transition, albeit an exciting one, a bit easier on the soul.

So it seems needless to say that creating a room for our son became a process of great thought for the two of us. I've known couples who have had this space completely prepared five months into their pregnancy. We were not one of those couples! In fact, until last weekend, we hardly had any furniture in his room whatsoever. We actually spent months with the room completely empty so that we could try to get an image in our minds of our little man's space. It's not a big space but it's still his space...and we both believe that everyone needs a little corner to call their own!

At long last, the room is coming together. I'm sure that much like the rest of our house, it will continually be a work in progress, but at least it can now accommodate a human being if need be (which is a good thing given that we're less than two weeks away from d-day!)! With the help of all of our amazing friends and family (who have proven to already love our little boy dearly), we have begun to prepare for the "un-preparable"!!

~~~

My Father-in-law makes the most beautiful furniture and it's been a tradition in the Smyth family for each new "Li'l Smytty" to have his or her own Smyth crib. I was in love!

I'm convinced that bath toys alone are a great reason to have children!!!!

We heart Baby Gap and Aunt Jamie for her adorable taste!!!

The other beautiful creation by my Father-in-law...

It took us nearly five months to find a glider for his room! But it's seriously the most comfortable thing that I've ever sat in (and I'm sure that we'll spend many a night parked right there!!!)

The teddy bear (lovingly named Myron!) was a gift from Steve at 20 weeks...

We hope to see you soon Baby Boy!!
And we hope that the gorgeous paint colour we chose radiates many sleep filled nights!!
*wink wink*

{excuses, excuses...}

Being eight and a half months pregnant makes me sleepy.

Being sleepy makes it hard to blog.

Blame my son!

{nocturnal happenings...}

I had read not too long ago about how pregnant women are prone to some rather vivid and unusual dreams! Of all the many changes that women go through while experiencing the various stages of pregnancy…I found this one to be the most hilarious!! Mostly because, for as long as I could remember, I have always had pretty wild dreams to begin with so the thought of them exceeding their current state of descriptiveness was rather amusing to me!!!

For starters, I almost always remember my dreams when I wake up. I’ve never needed to write them down and wonder what the heck was going on in my head during the night because they are always as clear as day when I wake up in the morning. I also dream in colour and mostly in English (if I’ve spent a lot of time that day around my French counterparts…then I have French dreams…like the good little bilingual girl that I am!!)!

Sure enough though, I have found that in the last month or so, my dreams have become so vivid and ongoing that sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I actually have to take a minute to decipher what was real and what wasn’t! On top of that, I find that my sense of humour in the night has gone up a notch and now rest on borderline ridiculous! Apparently there is no end to the delirium that comes with pregnancy!!

Let’s take a couple of weeks ago for example…

For those of you who aren’t keeping up on your entertainment news; Mike Fisher and Carrie Underwood recently got engaged over Christmas. This is rather exciting news for those of us living in the Nation’s Capital because Fisher plays for our NHL hockey team, the Ottawa Senators (though this was far less exciting news for many of Ottawa’s single girls as he was also one of our most adored bachelors!!). Since our town is usually plagued with nothing but political news, a celebrity wedding of sorts is always a wonderful distraction!

{I think this would also be an appropriate time to mention that our little man has lovingly been named ‘Lil Fisher while in utero and has since been betrothed to ‘Lil Underwood who’s due to be born in May!!}

But alas, I digress…

So anyways, I had a dream that Fisher and Underwood called me to ask if I would be willing to photograph their wedding (riiiiiiiiggghhtt!!) and I, always aiming to please, was more than willing to shift around some scheduling conflicts to accommodate them! We decided to meet up at their house to discuss some of the details and when I arrived, the lovely couple was eagerly sitting at their dining room table in all of their beautifulness just waiting to talk about their big day! But before I even got the chance to sit down, I noticed three little kittens scurry across their dining room floor! I immediately dropped everything (both literally and figuratively) to go over and play with them! I just sat there on their floor, like the five year old that I am, happily playing with their little bundles of fur and completely disregarding my reason for being there in the first place. Meanwhile, Fisher and Underwood continued to sit at their table patiently waiting for me to get all of this feline fun out of my system so we can get on with our meeting (they were so polite!).

THEN {I know…can you believe there is more to this horror story?!?!}…

Jason Spezza arrived at their house (a fellow teammate that got married in Ottawa last year) with tile samples for the kitchen renovation that he was overseeing at his Mother’s house! Now, the only thing that I love as much as baby animals is home improvements…so it wasn’t long before Spezza and I parked ourselves on the floor (with the kittens, of course) while we discussed the best colours and textures for his Mom’s new kitchen. Jason totally became my new BFF!! All the while, Fisher and Underwood just sat there, completely perplexed and wondering when I was going to start paying attention to them!! They were actually totally adorable considering all of the neglect that I was imposing on them! By the time my alarm went off, I had yet to utter a single word to the happy couple!!! Oh, the shame of it all…

I actually woke up from this dream laughing out loud! Being pregnant really does provide a certain amount of comic relief!

Just for the record though, to any potential brides and grooms out there who might be reading this…I swear that I’m not that easily distracted by kittens and kitchens!!!!!