rush job

saturday:

a little bit of project progress, family shopping, trying and failing to rest, some more chores

revenu quebec solidarity tax credit special: we've both been notified that our solidarity tax credit has been revoked because our spouse has claimed it. when we got hold of them, we learned that that had nothing to do with anything and that as a family with a combined income we simply weren't eligible.

mr smear's birth certificate arrived! which meant that it was time to get started with the permanent residence application. which meant learning that i could've and should've begun weeks ago...

half-and-half caring for mr smear and caring for my project, some wonderful moments with the former (dancing to country joe and the fish) and some good successes with the latter. catching my mom for a quick chat and watching a bit of the code which is a fascinating documentary.

sunday:

it's incredibly disturbing trying to wake a slumbering child to feed when he's so tired that he keeps falling asleep while eating.

broken wakeup, sleeping in, starting the day trying to listen to the joe rogan experience. the latest episode began with eight full minutes of adverts for his sponsors. seriously? and what followed was boring as hell (granted, it was jay leno, i was curious). restarting the day by checking out phineas and ferb - awesome! - and then discovering that the classic winnie the pooh is on netflix ^_^

finally faxing israeli social insurance to update my residence status (and praying that they'll be decent about it and reimburse me for the two and a half years of payments i didn't need to make) followed by an afternoon of baby care, delicious smoothie-making, and good project progress.

monday:

the midnight grind, followed by finally getting to sleep at 3am only to get straight back up due to rls

mr smear's screams invaded my dreams but didn't wake me :(
really crazy dreams, a long struggle to wake up and discovering radiolab podcasts

the forgotten horrors of completing immigration applications compounded by mr smear's never-ending needs. trying to rest but too stressed, the big floor cleaning mission and learning how to set mousetraps: those little things are bloody terrifying once you've almost lost a finger to one :P

an evening entertaining / changing / feeding mr smear while gd rested

tuesday:

6am *joy*, eddy grant, inspectors with comfy boots, catching up with dirk diggler, a long afternoon placating our little one and getting minor things done while watching ethos (see previous post), gd pseudo-baking vegan cookies, increasing confidence with the residence application, shopping being my first excursion in days, chatting with my mum, getting to bed early-ish

wednesday:

waking disaster at 2am, then another at 7am
arranging a job interview, filing tax returns, our first meeting with a babysitter and learning that while mr smear has become heavy... he isn't *too* big, but he's definitely getting enough food from gd when she feeds and we might have been over-supplementing

finishing both outstanding tax returns in one day! stepping out to print and mail them and happening to look in the mailbox and open the letters on the way; one of them was from revenu quebec and upon reading it i realized that i'd forgotten to check a box on each return that it appears would have cost us around $600...

gd and my big sister: a spooky tale

shopping, feeding and tipping over a glass of water onto my phone and my most important documents, barely managing to rescue them, scarfing down a quick dinner then trying to do a garbage run and feeding simultaneously - my boy does NOT accept substitutes, so no pacifier for him while i prep formula - and finally changing him and being treated to a seemingly interminable real-time pooping. so much for getting an early night's rest before my government medical exam in the morning...

yesterday:

2am business as usual - although it's quite gratifying to feel like for some things mr smear just needs his daddy

defeated by a mouse

after getting up early and rushing off to my medical examination at one of the few facilities authorized by the CIC to do so, handing over my documents and filling out the form, the secretary asked me if i had any tattoos. yes, i replied. she informed me that the CIC demands an extra $55 in that case. whatever for? i asked. there's additional bloodwork, she told me. are you willing to pay?
i told her to wait and went outside to call another office i happened to have the number for. after i was told the cost - slightly cheaper - i asked if there were any other charges i might need to know about. no, sir. what if i have tattoos? no, sir, the price includes everything. right. so i booked another appointment and went back to the secretary to cancel my examination and tell her that maybe, just maybe, they should tell people about extra charges on the phone before they've made the effort to arrive. and not lie about who's doing the charging.

more spooky sibling shit

almost losing copies of my passport and work permit because the metro's butterfly doors are so badly designed

trying and failing to get hold of prince interactive, a chicken replacement snack that wasn't bad, but wasn't really chicken-like either, tax return filing part one, the setup, the excursion (gd meeting nox on our way out), tax return filing part DONE, exhaustion plus relentless baby with a short break for dinner

today so far:

a rough night with an unhappy little boy, getting ready for a chat with a recruiter for one of the big companies who actually seemed to know her shit, an introduction to montreal's diaper service (simple, eco-friendly and cost-effective? we'll definitely give it a try!), and now getting ready for an interview.