THE GOODS BLOG: Erika's Precious Little Life - May Edition

I kind of can’t believe that it’s May and that I spent all of April hunkered down. I’m even more surprised (or am I?) at how much I didn’t hate it. I feel relaxed. And as much as I miss eating in restaurants and being able to do activities, I have said “I’ll be sad when this ends” on several occasions. I think that I’m beyond the initial point of feeling distressed about the pandemic and have now settled into a comfortable new normal. I feel like April flew by in a lazy, easy-going, zero-expectations sort of way.

Even though we’ve pretty much been stuck in our house for seven weeks(!), it still felt as if April had a bunch of fun things going on. Or at least we did a good job of making it seem that way.

I have been doing SO. MUCH. YOGA. I’m on day 47 (and counting) of doing yoga consecutively which is BY FAR my longest record ever! Some days I even practice more than once. It’s safe to say that my yoga practice has not suffered and if anything, I’m doing it way more.

(I am super grateful that Archie still takes an afternoon nap for 2-3 hours each day. Now you know why stay-at-home-moms never get rid of the afternoon nap. Ever.)

We’ve been spending a lot of time outdoors, whether it’s going on a nature walk, taking a walk around the neighbourhood, or simply hanging out in our own backyard. This is something that was already very important to me so it’s been nice to expand on that especially as the weather has gotten nicer.

It was Easter! And even though we didn’t get to have brunch at the CN Tower like we had planned, it still felt like a totally normal and great Easter at home. Archie is completely into the concept of the Easter Bunny and was so excited for him to come. He loved hunting for Easter eggs!

Here’s our "front steps" photo (which is a thing that people are doing) that we took on Easter!

By now you probably saw the fun The Don’t Rush Challenge video that Nadine, Sarah, Crystal, Jaelyn, Robin, Susan and I made! It was a lot of fun to collaborate and create this with them all. (And of course Tim deserves all the credit for editing the video for us.) I feel that during this pandemic time I have been way more in touch with friends and family through various video chats each week. It has been nice. It makes me feel as if my social schedule is more full than usual.

For the most part, I just live in this cuddle ball though. And I’m not mad about it.

As you probably noticed, I made a public post about our Edmonton news. Tim has officially given his notice to Ubisoft, and while they’re disappointed they’re also being supportive. So that all turned out well. Tim’s last day at Ubisoft is on June 5th and his first day at BioWare is on June 8th. This is all happening while Tim works from home so it’s all pretty unceremonious! We still don’t have a clear idea of when our physical relocation will occur.

Once everything became “officially official” it was time to celebrate! We have a tradition that whenever a major “life thing” happens (such as deciding to move to a new city) we always buy a fancy bottle of champagne to celebrate. This time we got Cristal Brut Vintage Champagne. One of our favourite restaurants (and the #1 restaurant in Canada) has started doing “Alo at Home” where you can buy a fancy 5-course dinner from them as take-out. They even provide you with a music playlist so that you’re listening to the correct music while you eat! So we decided to make a whole evening of it and we played “fancy restaurant” at home! Archie absolutely loved it. We all got dressed up, popped our bottle of fancy champagne, and ate an incredibly delicious dinner! It was the perfect way to celebrate our latest life decision, even from our own home.

Honestly, being isolated with this crew is far from the worst. We’ve been having fun.

Life with Archie:

Archie is potty trained! I’m so glad that we got this done while we’ve been at home! We’re still putting a diaper on him at night to sleep, although I don’t think that it’s necessary. After only a few days into potty training he stopped wetting his diaper during naps and overnight. We stopped putting a diaper on him for naps but are still too nervous about an entire night of sleep. I am so happy to be finished with the diaper era!! He’s so cute in his little undies!

Archie is in a music video that airs on CBC Kids most mornings. It’s called the Staying Home Song. He really loves when it comes on TV and he sees himself.

I think that Archie is doing okay with the whole pandemic thing. He still asks to do certain things that we can’t do right now but also seems to understand that there’s a reason why things are different. The other day he coughed and said “I have Coronavirus!” HA HA! I’m trying to keep him on a somewhat similar schedule to before but I’ll be the first to admit that he gets way too much TV time. He also knows the Prime Minister by name.

On the plus side, he keeps asking to play “fancy restaurant” again, so I know that he is truly my son. ;D

(He sat through all five courses and ate them all. His favourite was the Bigeye Tuna Sashimi. We also let him have a sip of Cristal. Because he fancy.)

The next thing on our “Archie to-do list” is to get him sleeping in a “big boy bed” because he still currently sleeps in a crib. We would like to introduce this soon (before we move) so that we’re staggering the number of changes happening in his life. (Not piling them all on at once.)

IT’S GONNA BE MAY!

It sounds like things are going to slowly start re-opening this month and that should be very interesting.

Things that were *supposed* to happen this month: reservations to have brunch in the CN Tower (canceled for a second time), a goodbye party with my Toronto friends which involved doing an escape room and going for dinner (without kids), we had planned a weekend trip to Niagara Falls where I was also going to be seeing an OK Go concert... All cancelled. :(

It’s also crazy to remind myself that we were planning to leave Toronto, permanently, at the end of this month. This doesn’t even seem like a thing that could have been real right now. We had been tossing around a few potential ideas and our general intention was to have the movers come to pack up our house near the end of the month. Then we were planning to drive to Edmonton. We thought that we could make a fun springtime road trip out of it. (Of course BioWare would pay for our flights but we thought that this could be a fun adventure. Plus they would’ve paid for our gas and probably some hotels instead.) Our plan was to take two weeks to make the journey, stopping in London (for two nights to say goodbye to Tim’s family), Chicago (for two nights), Minneapolis (for one night), Thunder Bay (for one night), Winnipeg (for two nights to see Heather!), Regina (for four nights to see my family), and then Edmonton. Of course this entire idea is completely ruined now, which is sad. Now when we’re able to move we’ll just fly because making all sorts of stops along the way and being tourists and especially going into the USA are all bad (or entirely not allowed) ideas right now. So that’s a bummer.

I am going to have a new niece or nephew any day now!! Tim’s sister Emily is due on May 5th! This will be my 6th niece or nephew and I seriously hope that I finally get my first nephew! This family needs more boys!!

Mother’s Day is coming up and Alo is offering a Mother’s Day Brunch for take-out and we’ve ordered it! I’m so excited!

May Long Weekend is also happening... But long weekends basically mean nothing now.

Here are some notes that I’ve been taking over the course of the pandemic, to remind me what it has been like:

~ There is almost TOO MUCH good free yoga to do!!

~ Re-watching Parks and Recreation from the beginning every night is giving me the MOST joy. PLUS they aired a reunion episode (A Parks and Recreation Special) right after we finished, as if somehow they knew!

~ I have NO interest in watching Tiger King.

~ Other shows that have been meaningful: Wall of Chefs, the series finale of Schitt's Creek, SNL At Home, Terrace House.

~ The official snack of self-isolation: Miss Vickie's sea salt & malt vinegar chips, chocolate covered almonds & peanuts.

~ The only thing that I'm going to remember about the pandemic is that large naked black man.

~ I LOVE having no plans and no expectations.

~ Potty training your child during self-isolation = Perfect timing?

~ I can't WAIT to support the shit out of restaurants after this is all over.

~ We watch The Sunday Service (Vancouver improv) online every Monday evening and it is the most wonderful.

~ The #1 most elusive item of the pandemic is Lysol wipes.

~ Biggest self-isolation cooking trends: sourdough bread, dalgona coffee.

~ Everyone is cutting their own hair. Thankfully I don't "do" haircuts. Neither does Archie. Tim DID cut his own hair.

~ "Speaking moistly." Don't do it! Watching Trudeau's address every morning is a part of our day.

~ Gas costs like 76.9 in Toronto which is unheard of.

~ Dye your hair a wacky colour? Yup. That's a thing.

THIS MONTH’S SHOUT-OUTS!:

May 14th is Heather Petrychyn’s 38th birthday!

I hope that your birthday will still be special even though it’s a weird time. You’ve always been a great friend and I miss all of the adventures that we used to have. I was thinking about our California trip the other day and I wish that we could do something like that again! Love you! ♥

May 18th is Nicole Thibault’s 38th birthday!

Birthday!!! Just think: This time next year I will be celebrating with you! I can’t wait for Birthday Girls Nights to be a thing again!! I can’t wait for it all to be a thing again. I love you with all of my heart! ♥

May 27th is Krystie Coutu’s 34th birthday!

I hope that your day is extra special and that you feel truly loved and celebrated! I miss you so much and hope that we’ll see each other again sometime soon. At least Edmonton is quite a lot closer to you! I love you! ♥

May 28th is Heather Petrychyn’s 9th wedding anniversary!

Wishing you and Curtis a special time to celebrate! ♥

May 31st is Susan Murphy’s 7th wedding anniversary!

Wishing you and Matt a special time to celebrate! ♥