Jay calls me a hippie. Or rather, a wanna-be hippie. I recycle our wine bottles, soda cans (when we have them) and milk jugs. I try to shop only at the “hippie markets” (aka Wild Oats and the Fresh Market). What I do is laughable compared to these Canadians!

My 89 year old great aunt has recylcing down to a science. Her fridge is covered in the recycling do’s and don’ts…even a new alternative recycling program! Everything she throws out has a place, from bottles, jars, and cans, to food particles and tea bags. Newspapers go in the black bin, the top of the wipes container (that she actually removed from the wipes bag) goes in the blue one. It is amazing, and enviable.

At the Senators game last night, they had bins for plastic bottles, aluminum cans, even one for your programs!

But the thing that really got me is a series of Toronto-based commercials called, “What’s your water IQ?” This guy goes through the streets of Toronto polling people about water facts and ways to conserve water.

My personal favorite was, Name three ways to conserve water at home. These were the answers people gave:

*Brush with a cup of water, instead of running the tap
*Take a bath instead of a shower

And my personal favorite:

*If it is YELLOW, let it MELLOW. If it is BROWN, flush it DOWN!

OH MY GOD! I cannot even imagine. The mere idea gives me the heeby jeebies. Canadians are such better hippies.

St. Patty’s Day was a very busy day. I am Irish by marriage, ya know.

We woke up and I realized that I had not packed the very cute, uber cool Irish t-shirt I bought for Thane before we left. We were finally heading out to the Science and Tech museum where I used to work though, so I was happy. Happy until we got there and it was closed.

So, this Tennessee family decided to do something totally unique…go to a farm.

We went to the Experimental Farm on a pretty cold Ottawa morning. I was under the impression that the Farm was “free” right now (because of the cold and what a neighbor had told me) so I, obliviously, walked right in, beyond the guard at the gate before Jay brought me back to pay. Ooops.

We walked from barn to barn, starting with horses, mainly Clydesdales, pigs, goats, a donkey named Eeyore and some rabbits…Thane loved the dark rabbit named Smokey.

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Once we arrived on Thursday and had a chance to settle in, I decided it was time to do a little grocery shopping. We had not packed a ton of diapers and formula and Giagia and Pappou had not arrived yet so we were in desperate need of supplies. Since we did not have a car, our only means of transport was the Ottawa Bus System, OC Transpo. I have been telling Jay that I grew up in two places, NYC and Ottawa where public transportation was not a four letter word like it is where we live now. It was time I showed him how easy it was.

We bundled up Thane in his brand new snow suit. We have already experienced that he does not like to be bundled but thought we had finally found one he liked. Oh, backing up, we had tried to no avail to get Thane to take a nap earlier. He had slept on the plane but had woken up CRAZY early and had not slept since like 10 am. It was now 3 pm.

Back to the story….we bundled him up and had the most pathetic, unhappy baby on the block. It was a combination of being overtired and overbundled.

I put on the Baby Bjorn, my boots, and my coat before I strap him and then we are on our way to Billings Bridge. For having about 4 feet of snow on the ground, it was not as cold as one would expect. We start off to the bus stop, about a half mile away.

We are approaching the half way mark when I notice that Thane is not moving. He looks asleep and my first reaction is, “Wow, that was fast.” We walk a little further and I, out loud say, “He is really out.” A little further I notice he is not even moving a smidge.

In my mind I am thinking that either the instant hit of cold or the tightness of the suit (it was not that tight) has put him into a coma.

At this point we are at the bus stop and I even have Jay worried. We are jostling him, saying his name loudly in his ear, everything we can try with absolutely no movement. It does not occur to me that I have an extremely tired baby wrapped up like the kid from A Christmas Story.

Paranoia is really setting in now….

We take him out of the Bjorn and unzip his snow suit. Movement. A whimper. Little hands rubbing little tired eyes. If he could talk, he would have said, “Can you freaks let me sleep, PLEASE!?!?!”

Embarassed and afraid of being arrested for taking a baby out of his coat in subzero weather, we put him back in the Bjorn, board the bus that had arrived ever so timely, and realize that we are still very, very new at this.

It took us 4 days to put him back in the snowsuit before going out again (good thing we had a jacket)…

Later that night, Jay was out shoveling some snow from the lane way. There is a plow service that comes by and it clears the sidewalks. Unfortunately, it decided to dump all the shoveled snow into Aunt Sue’s driveway so Jay had to clear it before we could park the car.