Stop this emotional train ride, I wanna get off before it wrecks!

It's been one heck of a week.

Monday was normal. I spent the day vacuuming, sweeping, and otherwise cleaning.

Tuesday I spent the day psyching the kid and the dogs up, saying "Daddy's coming home today! Are you excited to see Daddy?!?"

Tuesday evening, Armondo finally came home after missing the ferry once. Cherry had already been sleeping for an hour before it was time to pick him up. She was happy to see him, but was so doughy* that she took quite awhile to really clue into what was going on.I rarely take photos of Cherry sleeping, 'cause I'm always afraid of waking her up. But since she was getting woken up anyway, I just went ahead. And she's sleeping in her playpen, not her "big girl" bed. She may never want to sleep in her real bed. I'm ok with that. The playpen works.


After getting back home, my dad arrived home and offered to watch Cherry while she slept so that Armondo and I could go out for dinner. It's been awhile since the two of us had a childless dinner, and that in itself was nice, but, I have to admit, things were a little tense, because all of a sudden, it turns out that instead of having three weeks home, Armondo has to go back out onto the boat right away for the next fishing run. He had already told me this on the phone the day before, but it was right before dinner that we found out that he had to go back to work on Thursday. Which means that the bbq we had planned for Friday (today) had to be cancelled, and it meant we only had two nights and one full day with him. And, it meant that he really only had one full, unpaid day off.

Tuesday night in bed, I started spewing about the issues I've been sort of dealing with. (I didn't bother him with all the dumb friend stuff though.) We had a huge cry fest, hugged lots, had good make up sex and he came up with a plan and made a promise.

He's going to work this trip, then have the next trip off. He will then work two more trips which will take us into early Dec., at which point he will have another scheduled time off, and this is when he will quit fishing and go onto EI. After the baby is born, (due early Jan) he will switch the EI to parental leave, and have a full year off at home, during which he hopes to go back to school to learn a new trade. He feels as though cooking is a good enough job to support himself, but it's just not good enough to support a growing family. And fishing just isn't good for our family. He wants his kids to have more than he did growing up. And that's the plan. We were up past 2 am discussing this stuff.

While he's gone on this run, we're going to try to plan some sort of vacation. I might take Cherry and the car on the ferry and meet him up north (The same "up north" where we were trying to move to) when the boat stops there, and then the bunch of us will do some visiting there and then drive back down through the province stopping in various towns to camp and play tourist. (The boat is on a trip from the northern tip of Vancouver Island to up north, where the boat will stop and the crew will switch over. The skipper has offered to pay for flights home for Armondo and the other guy, but Armondo is going to try to see if he'd pay for my ferry ride up instead, so we can drive home.) We haven't made a final decision on this, but it might happen. Otherwise, we'll just go camping somewhere else.

Back to my week.

On Wednesday, we went shopping. I mean, we REALLY went shopping. We spent close to $300 on rain gear, baby clothes, a new car seat, toiletries, sweats for Armondo, and other various items. It was a full day event. Yeah, Armondo had ONE day home, and we spent it shopping. Pretty typical for us. It's what we do. We shop.

I was also feeling pretty crappy all day Wednesday. Early Wednesday morning, in the middle of the night, I got up to feed and diaper Cherry, and nearly fainted. Twice. One time I totally blacked out. It was pretty frightening! I then spent the day Wednesday puking, dizzy, and exhausted. But that, of course, didn't interrupt the shopping.

Thursday morning we got up really early to all catch an early ferry, and we took Armondo back to the boat to go to work. We got a mini tour of the boat, but we didn't go into the depths of it, because, although it was REALLY clean for a fishing boat, the smell of fish was a little too much for me to take with my weak stomach. I used the toilet though, and I got to see where Armondo slept. And we saw the wheel house. That was about it. It wasn't too exciting, but it was sort of neat.

Then, Cherry and I went shopping. Hee hee.. we went to IKEA for our semi-annual trip, and bought a whole bunch of classic wooden toys including blocks and trains. We also got finger puppets, lights for her room, and a toybox for her doll clothes and accessories. (Clothes and accessories that she doesn't really own yet, but will someday.) We spent over $200. I have to say it is IMPOSSIBLE to go to Ikea and spend less than $200. Well, maybe it's possible if you live close to one and go often, but when you live far away, and rarely get to go, you tend to buy as much as can fit into your car. Well, most of the time anyway. This time, we actually only bought two bags and a couple of loose items worth, but it still was over $200.Ikea has some cool toys!

We got back relatively early last night, so I picked up some Chinese food for dinner, which is something I've been craving forever! And I went to bed at 8:30.

Today, I cleaned pretty much the whole house, because although Armondo was awesome and did the dishes at least twice while he was home, we still pretty much let the rest of the house go while he was here. Not only that, but when we cancelled the bbq, we told people that they were still welcome to stop by, but that they would only be fed cake, and not any real food, so I had to have the house somewhat presentable. When Armondo called his mother and his aunt, both said they would stop by today, and guess what?!? Neither of them did. Ha. I should have expected that.

Ryann did stop by though, and she brought presents! She's not in town very often, so it was good to see her, even if the visit was short, and she spent half the time talking to my dad. (They went to university together, believe it or not.) She can't eat cake though due to a wheat allergy, so we had ice cream together instead.Cherry and Ryann hanging out.
Cherry opening her present from Ryann, that contained a bunch of books. (Toy in the background was another Ikea purchase.)
Which brings me to the present time. I just finished eating my piece of cake. Alone. And it's the only piece of cake that's been cut from the slab. Why? Because I figured I'd wait until Cherry's grandmother came over to see the little one with cake all over her face. Well, she never showed, and Cherry's bedtime came and went, so she's in bed, and I'm eating her cake. I'm a nice mother! I sort of loathe my MIL.

And, now it's time for bed again, and I plan on having a good weekend.

*"doughy" is a term I use to describe Cherry when she first wakes up. Her skin is soft and squishy, she's in a total daze, and can't seem to do much more than grunt. It's pretty darn cute.