splish splash

First of all, I just want to say thank you to everyone who reached out to me after my last post, I really appreciate all your messages and comments. And for what it’s worth, I don’t actually think I’m shitty or a bad mom, I’m just tired of people’s reactions making me feel like I am? Plus writing all that out was pretty cathartic and now I’m just like… I’M OVER IT.

Anyway. Before lunch today I took Gwen to the wet, rainy park to break in her new boots & coat. Of course, by the time we made it outside it had stopped raining, and then when it started raining again the sun had also come out so it was steaming hot. IDEK, what even is weather?

00-drops

01-full-gwen

02-flower

03-puddle-jump-1

04-puddle-jump-2
She found this one small puddle to jump in and I couldn’t get her out of it.

05-hawthorn-berries

06-moss

07-gwen

08-pond

Gwen’s coat is from the Gap, her boots are Hunters.

Put Up or Shut Up

little-gwen

When you are pregnant people ask you a lot of questions about your baby plans. Some of these questions are pretty innocuous (“when are you due? is the baby a boy or a girl? do you have any names picked out?”) and some are way too intrusive (“are you planning on breastfeeding?” FROM TOTAL STRANGERS, like no I don’t care to discuss my boobs with you), but no question has come to inspire more dread in me than “when are you stopping working?”

In Canada we have 50 weeks of paid maternity leave. I assume many people take it, at least some of it. I took it with Sym and I took it with Gwen, and everyone expects I will be taking it with this baby. But the thing is, I’m not. I’m using my vacation days to take the first two weeks of October off work and basically keeping my fingers crossed (and my legs uncrossed?) and hoping this baby is born during that time because I really don’t want to stop working at 9 months pregnant and start working at 9 1/2 months pregnant. Based on my previous births (Sym 4 days early and Gwen right on her due date) and the fact that this baby just FEELS like they are gonna be ready on time, I’m pretty confident that I have nothing to worry about. I have to be, because what else can I do?

But when I tell people about my plan, the look they give me is just like… SHOCK and HORROR and DREAD, like I’ve said I’m planning on idk, having my baby in a public bathroom and leaving it in the trash? Like not taking maternity leave is literally the most appalling thing people can think of. They always shriek “WHAT???? HOW IS THAT EVEN GOING TO WORK?????” like people have never had a baby and then gone back to work soon after. Newsflash: people do it all the time! And there are lots of different reasons why they might do it. Maybe they really love their career. Maybe their partner is going to stay home with the baby while they work. Maybe they don’t have a choice. Maybe life costs money and they can’t afford to stop working for a year, or even a month.

Something people might not know about Canada’s 50 weeks paid maternity leave is that the government doesn’t just give you your whole annual salary in a shower of loonies and toonies. The benefit is 55% of your regular income. So like… cut your paycheque basically in half, and add diapers (and in my case, formula) to your monthly expenses. You still have to pay all your bills, your rent or mortgage, loan or credit card payments, car payments, whatever. Everything you were paying before, but do it with half the money. Or depending on your income, less than half, because there is actually a maximum amount the government pays, and it’s $537 a week. When I took my maternity leave with Gwen I was getting nowhere near the maximum amount, and were I to take it this time I’d be getting even less, and here’s why:

I’m self-employed. As a self-employed person I am eligible to take paid maternity leave, because I’ve opted into it. But since I don’t have a paycheque from an outside employer to base my payments off of, instead they calculate it based on my net income from my previous year’s tax return. Gwen was born in late 2012 so they calculated my maternity leave benefit off my 2011 tax return. In 2011 I was working a lot and earned a pretty ok amount of money, but for this baby my benefits would be calculated using my 2015 return and let’s just say… it would not be a lot. It basically wouldn’t be anything. So while TECHNICALLY I can take the time off, I can’t afford to take the time off, and unless people are keen to give me many, many, many tens of thousands of dollars to live off of for the next year I would appreciate it if they would shut up. Actually not even the next year, the next year plus however long it would take me to once again rebuild my business from nothing. Because if I take a year (or even a few months) off work, I will lose all my clients and when I start working again I will have to find brand new ones. So let me reiterate: unless you want to give me all your money, I don’t want to hear your opinion on my not taking time off of work. Tbh I probably don’t want to hear your opinion anyway so maybe just keep your mouth shut while your hand over that cheque/click that paypal link, mkay?

The other thing people like to bring up when I say I’m not taking leave (and I think this one is very stupid) is HOW am I going to keep working at my job when I’m up all night with a newborn baby?!?!?! I will never get any sleep! It will be so hard! Obviously as an almost-40-year-old-woman having her third child I have no idea what I’m doing! I’m dumb, so fucking dumb! Well. Here’s how I’m going to work at my job when I’m up all night with a newborn: I’m not. After the baby is born Taylor is going to work from home for a few months, and since he works nights he will be awake and available to tend to baby needs while I’m sleeping. How do I know this? BECAUSE IT’S EXACTLY WHAT WE DID AFTER GWEN WAS BORN. When we had her Taylor took a week? two weeks? off work entirely, and then worked from home until January. I got 8-9 hours of sleep every night and there was actually only one time when he had to wake me up to look after Gwen , and that happened at like 6am anyway. It worked for us before, and it’ll work for us again, and even if I do sometimes have to get up during the night and then work the next day like… ok? Like millions people before me, parents and non-parents alike, I will suck it up and do my job while I’m tired, wow, what a novel concept.

Do I sound bitter about this? I’m sure I sound bitter, and the reason why is yet another reason I wish people would stop judging me for not taking time off after having this baby: because I’m already judging myself enough, thanks. I feel super guilty about it all the time. I’ve cried about it. Hell, I cried about going back to work when Gwen was one because I didn’t go back to work until Sym was three and I felt guilty that I couldn’t take that much time off for Gwen as well. So how do you think I feel, knowing that I can’t really take ANY time off with this baby? I feel like a piece of shit, and the only way I can make it through most days is to try to stay positive and confident and believe that my plan, our plan, the plan my husband and I came up with because ours are the only opinions and concerns that matter, will work and I’m not going to ruin my baby’s life. So when I have people act all horrified and disapproving that in their opinion I’m making the wrong choice it is pretty much devastating because I am already devastated. So like congrats on making a pregnant woman cry? Nice work.

And like… obviously I can’t KNOW that everything will work out. There are a lot of unknowns when you have a baby. Sure, I don’t know the baby’s sex or the exact day they will be born, but I also don’t know if they will have a serious health problem that hasn’t been detected, or if they will have special needs. I don’t know if they will be a very colicky baby who cries all the time and no one will get any sleep. Like you can plan for things but life doesn’t always agree with those plans. I don’t know that I won’t go into labour right now. I don’t know that everything is gonna be okay and the truth is NO ONE DOES. We just have to believe things will work out and they probably will, maybe not exactly according to plan but we all just do our best with what we have (and if what you have is lots of money please feel free to send it my way).

september

cat

I read a quick little article the other weekend about how the Friday before, August 26th, was it for summer weather in Vancouver and WOW was it ever true. Since then it’s been cloudy & rainy on and off, and even when it’s sunny the air has that fall crispness to it. It really seemed to happen overnight but speaking as one who is eight months pregnant, I can’t really say I’m mad about getting a break from the heat.

Today is the first day of school and Sym has been up since 7am complaining that she doesn’t want to go. But like. It’s ONE HOUR today. All she has to do is show up at homeroom at ten, have her attendance taken and pick up her schedule (istg if they have stuck her in wack electives again this year I’M CRACKING SKULLS) and then she can come home. Actual classes don’t even start until tomorrow, and LET ME TELL YOU I’m really looking forward to that complaining session.

Taylor and I (and Gwen) spent most of the weekend working on getting the house ready for baby. We put together the crib, I sorted out and washed all the teeniest-tiniest baby clothes, we threw out a bunch of old junk that had been cluttering up the place and took some things out to storage. After we put the crib in place Taylor looked at it and was like “wow, shit is really getting really now” and I’m just like OH MY GIANT EIGHT MONTH BABY BUMP DIDN’T TIP YOU OFF?? Honestly. Anyway having gotten some of this work done I’m feeling a little better about the FOUR AND A HALF WEEKS we have left until baby comes, although we still haven’t received the toy shelf I ordered and so most of Gwen’s toys are in a heap in the baby’s crib, haha. It’s fine, the baby won’t really be using it right away, we still have time. That is the new mantra around here btw: IT’S FINE, WE STILL HAVE TIME.

five faves

ooak nursery illustration by The Disaster Life
ooak custom nursery illustration from The Disaster Life

Happy long weekend Friday! After realizing I was a whole week more pregnant than I’d been thinking this weekend I REALLY want to get some stuff done in the little kids’ room: tidy up Gwen’s toys as best I can (& pray that shelf I ordered arrives sooner rather than later!), set up the crib, put up some of the artwork on the walls and most importantly, start getting out baby clothes so this little one has something to wear when s/he arrives in just over a month!

this week’s faves…

Gwen’s new look for rainy days this fall is gonna be a bright yellow rain coat with bright red rain boots*.

We already have too many mugs I feel like I could really use this bear one, and hey why not throw in a bear infuser too?

I really feel like the little kid’s room needs some custom artwork like the one above from The Disaster Life, oh and this weekend get 50% of orders from her shop with the code “laboryay”

One thing we still need to get for the baby is a special bedtime cuddly toy. I really like this little deer one but doesn’t seem to be available in Canada (or with reasonable shipping to Canada, I’m not about to pay £15 shipping on a £14 toy).

The other weekend we got this faucet cover for our bathtub and Gwen LOVES it, both the way the water pours out and the built-in, self-foaming bubble bath dispenser. She is so eager to have her bath after dinner now we actually have to be careful to make sure she doesn’t climb into the tub & turn on the water on her own.

*I wasn’t planning on getting Gwen new Hunters after she outgrew the secondhand pair my friend Katie sent her, but with a new baby on the way to accept hand-me-downs, well that’s enough of a reason for me!

how many, how much

2 Gwens

I absolutely cannot keep track of how pregnant I am. Last Thursday I posted on instagram that I was 33 weeks pregnant, but yesterday I saw the doctor (the baby is “growing beautifully” and I gained almost a pound, lol) and she was like “so you’re almost 35 weeks!” and I recalculated and she was right, tomorrow I am 35 weeks pregnant, not 34. This is not the first time this has happened, either, but at least I’m always miscalculating in my favour? Like I’m never “woo, I’m 25 weeks preg!” when really I’m only 23 or 24. I’m very eager to not be pregnant anymore so learning I only have five weeks left instead of six is a bit of a gift.

Of course, this also makes me a little stressed out because I haven’t exactly finished setting up the baby’s side of the bedroom yet. The crib is still in pieces and I JUST ordered the shelf that’s going to go on the wall between it and Gwen’s bed, and the estimated delivery date isn’t for three weeks! It’s mostly meant to hold Gwen’s toys but without it the toys are all over the place and I until I put them away I feel like I can’t get anything else done in that room, like hang all the art and idk, wash & put away all the baby clothes??? They are still all folded up in bins in my hallway, where they’ve been since I sorted everything out back in January (when I thought I was getting rid of it all). I just have so much to do!

Adding to the discombobulation of this week, Taylor has been away since Sunday, at a work conference in Las Vegas. He’s gone to conferences without me the last two years but BOY OH BOY does my being pregnant make it different. I made Sym stay home with me all week to help with Gwen/the dogs/around the house and I have been relying on her so much more than I thought I would. Doing anything is just so exhausting! Like doing the dishes AND going to the grocery store in the same day? Only if I’m going to bed at 6pm. It has definitely not been easy but thankfully Taylor is back tomorrow afternoon? evening? at some point anyway, and I can let Sym get back to enjoying her last few days of summer vacation.

five faves

The other month when I closed my etsy shop it was partially because I was too tired/sick to keep up with it but MOSTLY because there was an imminent threat of Canada Post going on strike. So this week I FINALLY reopen it and WHAT HAPPENS? Canada Post might go on strike! I didn’t even realize it was a possibility again but THANKFULLY I got all my orders from this week out before the 72-hour strike notice was filed (I used to have a daycare client who was a mail carrier and he told me years ago that as long as I shipped to the US before the 72 hours started it would be ok). But still. How typical of my life! I’m going to leave my shop open for now since there is a chance mediation this weekend will prevent a strike, but what I’m really annoyed about is in the past couple weeks I ordered all the supplies I need to make my next line of crystal tiaras and none of it has arrived yet. Most of it is coming from overseas and takes weeks to arrive under normal circumstances so if there is a total work stoppage I have no idea when I’ll get any of it.

Anyway, on to the five things…

WHO’S WATCHING THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF??? And if not, why not? Like re-evaluate your priorities and make time for this.

This pregnancy I’ve been really enjoying wearing all my terrible/ridiculous jumpsuits and overalls and now I think I wanna get some non-maternity ones for the fall? I haven’t found the right pair that I like yet so if you have any suggestions leave me a link! I’m specifically looking for a medium-wash denim and a black.

tanie new hair
I got my hair cut fairly recently but being pregnant and not losing any hair means the cut grew out into a shapeless mass almost immediately so last night I went and had WAY more layers put in. I’ll probably regret it in December/January when I start to go bald from postpartum hair loss but right now I love it so much. If you’re local and would like to love YOUR hair as much as I love MY hair go see Aleksandra at in.salon.

We haven’t needed to buy much baby stuff this time around (lol I am SO THANKFUL that Taylor wouldn’t let me get rid of any of Gwen’s stuff!), other than a secondhand rockaroo I found on craigslist I’ve only bought a few special clothes. I did want to get a few swaddle blankets though- Gwen’s old bedroom was the coldest room in the house so all hers were flannel, and the new room she’ll be sharing with the baby is the warmest room so I figure we might need a few lighter weight ones. On the weekend I picked up this swaddle from aden + anais and it is so soft I want to LIVE in it. Like why can I not get a Tanie-sized swaddle blanket? DO I NOT DESERVE SWADDLING???

Teen Titans Go! is one of Gwen’s fave shows right now, and we’ve been slowly catching up on old episodes with her. This song features prominently in an episode from last fall but I just heard it for the first time this week and I’m LEGIT OBSESSED.

I hope everyone has a great Friday & a great weekend! Yesterday was Taylor’s birthday but we are celebrating tonight so I’m off to clean my kitchen well enough that I can bake a cake for him (no Genoise sponge though) (GBBO people will know what I’m talking about).

shop update: tiaras!

05 clear quartz crystal point tiara five
Petite Natural Clear Quartz Chunky Crystal Point Tiara

As I mentioned in my last post, I was (sort of jokingly) considering reopening my shop to try and sell some of the little crystal tiaras I’ve been making, mostly to justify buying more crystals to make more tiaras, haha. I figured “what the heck, just do it” and so for now the shop is open again! I’ve listed a a handful of ready-to-ship items only (nothing custom or made-to-order), including the finished tiaras I currently have in stock.

07 clear quartz crystal point tiara seven
Petite Natural Clear Quartz Crystal Point Tiara with Copper Wire (sold)

Each of these tiaras is completely handmade by me with the utmost care. I select each crystal carefully to create a cohesive and unique design for each piece, and take great consideration with the wire wrapping to achieve the delicate look of the tiaras without sacrificing strength and structural integrity. And they have ’em! I’ve messed up a few times and had to take a nearly-complete tiara apart and start over from scratch and LET ME TELL YOU it is not easy to disassemble these! That being said they are not a toy and should not be worn or played with by unsupervised children, and care should be taken in the handling and storage of the tiaras to ensure they don’t get bent or broken.

06 clear quartz crystal point tiara six
Tiniest Petite Natural Clear Quartz Crystal Point Tiara

You can find them all in the new “tiaras” section in my shop; currently there are just two available because they’ve actually been selling kind of quickly, but you can get notified of when new pieces are listed by liking my facebook page or following me on instagram. The tiaras currently available have natural, unpolished clear quartz crystal points, and I only have enough left to make three or four more so if this is the look you like don’t wait on ordering! I have more crystals on the way but they are a different colour and I don’t know when/if I’ll have the clear ones again.

04 clear quartz crystal point tiara four
Petite Natural Clear Quartz Crystal Point Tiara (sold)

bluer skies

IMAG0632

I tried to write a post earlier this week but I had to trash it because it was very depressing and I already feel like this blog is kind of becoming a misery blog? Like I was in a very Bad Place emotionally about the fact that I can’t afford to take what I consider a decent amount of time off work once the baby is born, and I am very sad and guilty about it. I actually had some incredibly thoughtful and generous friends offer to start a GoFundMe to raise some extra cash so I could take more time off but unfortunately the problem is that if I take the time off, I will lose all my clients and have no income when I go back to work, and will have to start all over again from zero rebuilding my clientele.

It’s a pretty big bummer of a situation all round and I have cried about it a lot, especially this week, but I don’t want anyone to think I’m regretting the pregnancy or not excited about it; in fact, I am SO excited to meet this baby in just 8 weeks if you can believe it! I’m now 32 weeks and 1 day pregnant, which is BONKERS to me. This pregnancy has really flown by, but at the same time I’m so ready for it to be done. It’s been hard; it’s still hard. But it’ll be worth it in the end, and I am trying my hardest to be more positive because like… what else am I gonna do?

I never had another ultrasound (in spite of my continuing to not gain significant weight, the baby keeps growing so it’s just like… eating me alive I guess) so we still don’t know the sex of the baby. Taylor is hoping for another girl, Gwen says the baby will be a girl baby (and we should name it Gwen), and when questioned Sym says the baby “can be anything it wants to be.” Sometimes I feel like it’s a boy, sometimes I feel like it’s a girl, but in what I consider a major success, Taylor and I actually have names picked out! Mostly. I think. A first & middle name for a boy, and just a first name for a girl. Considering we had Gwen home from the hospital for several days before picking her name this feels like an accomplishment.

In non-baby/pregnancy news…

It’s Taylor’s birthday in less than a week and I am totally unprepared. Normally by this point I’d have his gifts all ready or at least picked out but I still don’t even know what to get him! I know if it was MY birthday I would want these Vans but I can’t really buy myself shoes for his birthday, now can I? I only have this weekend to go shopping so hopefully I won’t be too sick or feeble.

Next Monday we are FINALLY getting screens installed in our stupid casement windows! I’m so excited as we are in the middle of a heatwave and seeing as how we can only open four windows in the entire apartment it gets very stuffy in here. We are only getting screens on five out of the seven casements but it’s better than nothing and I think I will even be able to get a cross-breeze in here. I CAN’T WAIT.

I’ve been in a major creative slump recently, like beyond having basically shuttered my etsy into permanent vacation mode. I just don’t have the time or energy to make stuff at all, but yesterday I started working out how to make some little tiaras with those crystals I ordered a few months ago. Gwen is wearing my first attempt in the picture above (and yes, I did take her outside just to stage a photo with it against the ivy wall for my instagram WHAT OF IT). I want to refine my wire-wrapping technique some more and have already made a second one which is a little tidier. I also dragged Taylor and Gwen to the craft store with me last night to buy a slightly thinner gauge wire that I think might be easier to work with, and I’m struggling very hard right now to try to stop myself from ordering more crystals. I still have a lot of these clear natural quartz but I have my eye on some in a shimmering blue-green that would make a pretty great mermaid crown. Also some silver and gold ones. And pink. And aurora borealis. Maybe purple? Huh, I will probably have to reopen my shop and start selling these to justify all the colours I want to buy.

a little help

Saturday
Me looking cute with my bump on Saturday afternoon, before everything went to hell.

This past weekend was a very difficult one for me. While neither the baby nor myself was ever in any danger, for the past week I’ve been dealing with a very painful pregnancy complication. I actually took last Friday off because of it because I was hoping some extra time to relax would help, but unfortunately over the weekend it continued to worsen. It got so bad on Saturday night that I went to the emergency room to try to get some help. I thought I would be okay but about an hour after I got home the pain returned, worse than ever. I actually woke everyone up at 3:30 in the morning sobbing, it was terrible. After staying up the rest of the night crying on the couch (I insisted Taylor take the bedroom so he could get at least some sleep since I knew he’d be looking after Gwen all day) I went back to the hospital on Sunday morning. To give you an idea of what kind of shape I was in, after examining me the ER doctor offered me morphine, which is not a thing ER doctors at downtown hospitals generally do (I declined it). My first visit I was only there about an hour, hour and a half but this second visit was much longer. I had to speak to two different surgeons about the possibility of having surgery, which meant waiting around (in a very cold exam room with a very uncomfortable examination table!) for 4 or 5 hours.

In the end they deemed the surgery too risky for both myself and the baby, so they sent me home with a prescription for painkillers & patience. Basically I just have to hope that this problem goes away on its own, which pretty much sucks. It was so unbearable yesterday, I think I cried more in twelve hours than in the last twelve years. Like just sobbing in pain, for hours. I also had a lot of anxiety and guilt about my prescribed medication; I don’t even like taking Tylenol when pregnant, let alone stronger painkillers like these. Thankfully I have some great and supportive friends online who helped me to work through my feelings and I was able to calm down enough to actually take them. This relieved the pain enough that I was able to get a decent amount of sleep last night, and as I took today off of work as well I’ve been able to relax more and I’m finally starting to feel a little better. The complication hasn’t actually resolved, nor do I expect it to fully, which means things are gonna be rough for the next two months. But I’m confident that with the support & help of my awesome friends and amazing family (the level to which Taylor, Sym and even Gwen stepped up to help me is almost overwhelming in how wonderful they’ve been) I will be able to get through it.

enough

blame_simian-1470250707736
The Fantastic Summer Fox by Taylor

Tomorrow I am 31 weeks pregnant and I’m pretty much at the point of feeling like YEP THAT’S IT THAT’S ENOUGH PREGNANCY I’M DONE. I think with Gwen I was like 37 weeks before I reached that point but this pregnancy has been so physically awful 🙁 Like I could deal with the exhaustion, the shortness of breath, the pelvic girdle pain, the heartburn so bad I can feel it in my ears… IF I DIDN’T FEEL NAUSEOUS ALL THE DAMN TIME. My morning sickness went away at like 28 weeks (I think?) and then last Thursday when I was 30 weeks it was back with a vengeance. It is just so hard to do anything when I’m constantly feeling like I’m going to hurl and have this sick taste in my mouth. It is very tedious and I am over it. But hey only NINE MORE WEEKS of feeling terrible, right? lmaooooooo

Because I’ve felt so crummy it’s been super difficult to the girls’ bedroom switch finished. Thankfully this past weekend was a long one and with Taylor’s help I was able to finish clearing out Gwen’s old room and start moving Sym in. First I had to fix all the holes in the walls and touch up the paint (which, btw, was NOT an exact match due to the different paint base), and once that was done we put up the curtains, installed the closet system and set up her new bedframe. That is pretty much it, and it took me/us the whole weekend. The closet system (1 shelving unit + 3 clothes rails) took FOUR HOURS to do because I had to take so many breaks! Yesterday during nap time Sym and I built her new desk and today we might put up one of her new bookshelves- she has an appointment with her ear doctor during naptime and LORD KNOWS I can’t do it myself so it might have to wait. It’s been really frustrating to be so enfeebled and I can’t help but think about when I was pregnant with Gwen and built her changing table/bookshelf and crib when I SWEAR I was more pregnant than I am now.

One good thing about the bedroom switch is now that Sym’s room is closer to the main living area it’s easier for the rest of us to annoy visit with her. Gwen is always going to knock on her door to ask for “more hugs” which is very cute. She loves hanging out with her big sister; she told us yesterday she wasn’t going to share the big bedroom with the baby after all, she was going to share the little one with Sym, haha.

On her first night in her new room Gwen opened her window (SCARY), so the next day I talked to her about how it wasn’t safe to open it by herself and installed a hook at the top of the window frame to loop the blind cord up out of her reach. So far it seems to be enough of a deterrent and she hasn’t opened the window since. Once the screens are in (soon, hopefully) if necessary we’ll get a mesh window guard to make it properly inaccessible. In the meantime we dug out the old baby monitor so we can hear what she’s up to in there, which has also enabled me to hear her weird sleepy mumblings.

Other good things (to counteract the misery in the first half of this post)…

Sym got her braces off last Wednesday and her teeth are AMAZING. They look perfect, and she is SO HAPPY. She got her retainers on Thursday and apparently had some difficulty with them at first (drooling, being unable to speak intelligibly, etc) but she says she’s used to them now. I think she’s really enjoying being able to eat any food she wants and also just brush her teeth with ease.

The past two Saturdays Taylor and I took Gwen to the Celebration of Light fireworks competition and she loved it! She asks to go to the fireworks all the time now, which is unfortunate since they’re over.

Sunday was the Vancouver Pride Parade and I was kind of thinking of going and then I remembered how sick and feeble and pregnant I am and I was like LOL NO, however that morning I was walking Georgie in the park across the street from my house and I saw Justin Trudeau, our Prime Minister! He and his family were marching in the parade and Nelson Park was the staging area for a few different groups, including the Liberal party. It was funny; I was about to head back up the street to my house and all these cops were like NOPE SORRY SIDEWALK IS CLOSED so I waited and two minutes later all these motorcycle cops and big black SUVs with lights flashing came roaring up my street. I got a few pics, all terrible, before giving up because he basically got swarmed and I was carrying my small dog & baby bump in a very excited and jostle-y crowd, but it was still pretty cool.

CotrAqZUMAA8vZx
Justin Trudeau is in the white pants & aqua shirt; the woman on the left in the denim jacket and aqua pants (actually a jumpsuit) pushing the stroller is his wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau.