Happy Birthday Annie-B!

This is the most important birthday I've ever experienced. And having travelled once around the sun with Annabelle, from her birth to 365 days later, I have a better understanding of what it means.

No Betty Crocker here...from scratch!

Colin and I were trying to remember, at various moments today, what we would have been doing exactly 1 year ago. Were we learning to bathe Annabelle? Trying to take a nap through all the hospital buzz? Trying to nurse (ouch)? Visiting with family and friends? Talking to the doctor? Staring at the baby? Most likely staring at the baby...

The details of the days following Annabelle's birth are a bit fuzzy, but one thing we agree on was that beautiful rosy post-birth glow. It softened the whole crazy, human experience, making it in retrospect, romantic. I believe that feeling is Love, true unadulterated LOVE; a one-way outpouring of emotion unlike anything I've felt before. Colin felt it too. And at moments we still feel it.

Well, today we celebrated Annabelle's first birthday. It was a simple affair, at the park near our home, with family and friends, playing some pick-up sports as the baby was passed from one set of arms to another. I guess maybe not such a baby anymore! It was a perfect day in Toronto, and exactly the kind of celebration we wanted: simple and outside.

Annabelle with her cousin Addison. I have a feeling that we're going to have to watch these two.

For first birthday parties, the Brooks family has a tradition of giving the baby their own cake; they get to go nuts, hands covered in icing and tastebuds in heaven. Sometimes the babies are weirded out by the experience (my nephew was scared of his cake), and others are all in.

Well, it seems that Annie has been waiting her whole life to eat that cake. Once we put a tiny taste of it in her mouth, she simply planted her face into the first layer. She then proceeded, to the great delight of her "audience" to lick the icing off the top. After awhile, I put a stop to the madness; I'm afraid that her first experience with sugar was a success.

Annie practicing for her first pie-eating contest.

So, Happy Birthday Annabelle! Or Annie, or Annie-B, A-B, Annie-Banany, Bananabelle, Adorabelle, Mud-Puddle, Peanut, Monkey-Doodle...whatever we call you, you're the best. THE BEST. Thanks for the most exciting year of my life. So far :)

'Til next time,

Caroline

Goals for home time!

We are one week into a month and a half at home, and I'm digging it. This is stating the obvious, maybe, but it's wonderful to nest, especially when it's the most gorgeous time of year in this often-smelly city. We've had a beautiful string of weather (how Canadian of me to be writing about the weather!), and it's now cool enough to close the windows in the house so that I'm not grinding my teeth each time a truck backs down our lane to dump a load of bricks for yet another construction project. I could write a few blogs about the noise in my neighbourhood this summer, let me tell you.

Plus, being home means I don't have to unpack and repack a suitcase full of baby crap each day. Everything is where it should be. Toys in each room, Annie in her own bed, her clothes in the closet, diapers in the drawer. And there's a high chair if I need to keep Annabelle in one place. It's awesome.

Bathroom playtime

Many people have been asking me what I'm doing during my time at home. There's an assumption that home = vacation. Not so for the self-employed...I've got some real personal and professional goals for my time in Toronto. I thought that if I shared them, I would be more accountable! My friend Kerri Ough wrote a great blog about what she planned to do with her sabbatical last year (read it here). I was inspired by that entry, and thought I'd share my goals too.

Here we go:

Daily Journal Writing
My journal scrawling has all but come to a halt since Annie was born a year ago. I used to journal regularly - especially on the road on long drives, or with a glass of wine late at night when Colin went to bed. Now, I just want to go to bed early too, and if I'm on the road with the baby, I'm either driving, entertaining her, or trying to nap. The last thing on my mind is putting thoughts to paper. So, at least four entries per week, even if it's just a recap of the day. I need to get the words flowing again.

Vocal Coaching
I have started to work with the fabulous Amanda Mabro to find ways to help improve my vocal health. There's a blog about my voice in the works where I'll explain my situation more deeply. In short, I'm learning that some bad technique and shitty amounts of sleep are the likely causes of 3 months of vocal trouble. Amanda's helping me work through this, and I'm so grateful. We're going to meet once a week, and I'm excited (and nervous) to see what kind of progress we can make.

Guitar Lessons
 I need some fresh eyes when I look at my guitars. Each time I pick up my guit-boxes these days, it feels like I'm playing the same things over and over. And while performing a hundred shows a year has certainly helped to improve my playing, I need to shake things up.
So, I'm going to take a few lessons, one on electric with the incomparable Christine Bougie to give me some new telecaster tricks, and one on acoustic with boy wonder Tom Power of CBC Radio 2 and The Dardanelles. It's been an embarrassing amount of time since my last lesson. These are well overdue.

Write/Complete Four songs
This fall break from touring was originally set aside for Good Lovelies to work on the new record, and that's what I'm going to do. I've got dozens of partially-written songs that need attention, and I'm hoping that some spark of creativity will get my songwriting going again.
I will admit that songwriting is not coming easily at the moment. I'm finding it hard to find inspiration (despite all the love in my life!).
I feel like my lyrics are trite and cheesy and completely without depth (not a new feeling, really). Also, combined with the vocal issues I've been having, I've been shying away from writing - well, unless I'm trying to entertain the baby. Today, while I was playing the guitar for Annabelle, I free-styled this little ditty:
Your name is Annie
You are cute and funny
But sometimes, oh sometimes
your diaper smells funky."

Can you say JUNO!?

Attend (at least) Five Live Shows
This is another part of my life that has been lacking since baby was born. I rarely go out to see live music, which is strange because I make my living depending on people doing just that.
There's no shortage of good music coming through Toronto in the next 5 weeks. Last night, I started working on this goal by seeing DIANA in concert at the Great Hall. The Good Lovelies sometimes-bassist Paul Mathew plays guitar/bass/synth in this band, and it was so fun to go see him in a different setting (DIANA's show is very different from the Lovelies!).

I was won over by the opening band last night, Empress Of.
She was mesmerizing...I think I'm in love. Again, 

Also, I drank a few beers last night, closed my eyes, swaying to the music. In that moment I was revelling in sound moving through me, trying to capture the subtleties of the music. It felt great to experience that again (and to hang out with some buds). This morning, not so awesome. Turns out I'm now a lightweight. First hangover since October 2011. Ugh.

momontheroad.ca
Over the next month I'll be working with musician and design wizkid Janine Stoll. She's helping me build a more comprehensive website for my Mom on the Road blogs. I'm excited to get this new webspace up and running!
In the meantime I have built a very basic website at www.carolinebrooks.ca. It's not much, but it's a place to point people in the direction of some of my projects. I'm feeling pretty energized about all of this, particularly because I just dropped an insane amount of dough on a new macbook pro.

Sleep Training Annie-B
Oh, this is my least favourite project for my time at home. This is the first significant amount of time at home we've had all year, and it gives us enough time to teach Annie to sleep (and to fall asleep) on her own. I'll get into this a bit more fully in an upcoming blog, but we need our little munchkin to learn how to fall asleep without our help. It's for our good, and hers too. We have made some really positive steps in the last week, but we have a long way to go.

My little taste-tester.

One New Recipe per week
Pretty self-explanatory. I do love cooking, even though my kitchen is the size of a postage stamp. It feels especially small when I have a one year old ambling around, getting her fingers into outlets, standing right in front of the stove, and pulling open the fridge.
So, I'm going to make one new dish per week. I have a feeling this month's recipes will involve many beautiful harvest vegetables. My favourite time of year for cooking (can you say Pumpkin pie!?).

And finally...

Throw a 1st birthday party!
Annabelle turns one tomorrow. And on that note, I must go bake some cupcakes, from a new recipe given to me by my buddy Sue Passmore (she has a great design/food/music blog...check it out here). We're having a gathering a the park tomorrow, taking advantage of the beautiful late summer weather.

Lots going on here, and I'm feeling energized (despite the hangover).

Til next time,

Caroline

A Mid-Western Swing

We've just wrapped a lovely 10 day our of the American Midwest with shows in Michigan, Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Fall tours of the US feel very comfortable - for several years we've found ourselves in the North East or Midwest at this time of year.

Rest-stopping somewhere in the Midwest.
Photo by: Sue Passmore

In packing for the trip, I summoned memories of those previous tours, picturing myself in jeans and light sweaters, and so I left the sandals at home. Boy did I regret that decision. Mother Nature played a cruel trick and sent the temperature up to the low 30s for many days in a row. Annie spent much of this trip hanging out in onesies and sweating it out in the backseat of the car.

And we did alot of sweating in the car: the routing on this tour made for some long and frustrating drives. There is nothing that gets me more worked up than driving back and forth across the same stretch of highway. We passed Portage, Indiana on the I-80 no less than 4 times, travelling between Illinois to Michigan and back again. I'm going to have to buy some carbon credits for that one. Ugh.

I have mentioned on this blog before that when I am travelling with the baby, I generally add one hour to every three we will be driving. This means that 6 hour drives can take up to 8 or 9 hours. Put three of those days in a row, and you get some very cranky Brooks-Loves.

Case in point: this past Sunday, we were scheduled to load-in to a Festival near Cleveland at 2pm. The night before we were playing in the Chicago area, which meant about 6 hours of driving. I was dreading this trip even before we realized that we would lose an hour as we moved from Central time to Eastern. To make it to the show on time, we were going to have to be on the road at 5 am. Barf.

So, my sister Katherine (our tour nanny this time around!) and I decided to leave after the Chicago show. There is nothing worse than trying to get to a gig on time while the baby's filling her pants in the back seat, and I didn't want to go through that the day of the Festival. Besides, we reasoned that if we got a head start on the drive, Annabelle would sleep deeply through the night portion of the trip. Then we could take our time in the morning and have a decent A.M. Routine. Perfect plan, right?

Well, suffice it to say it didn't quite work out the way we'd planed. Katherine put Annie down during the first set of our show in Chicago and she slept right up until we put her in the car at 10:15pm. And then she woke up. And then she was awake until 20 minutes before we landed somewhere in Indiana, at 2am EST - WIDE awake and cranky for the whole drive. I don't blame her. I was also super tired, but couldn't sleep because she was crying, and she couldn't sleep because I couldn't soothe her. Thankfully my sister had drunk a pot of coffee before we left, and was driving smoothly and steadily all the way. Easy to say that was not my favourite night of this tour.

Asleep at last.
Photo by: Katherine McKenzie

Each time we leave home now, Annabelle's needs are different. Over the last few months, she's become a very light sleeper, which does not lend itself well to touring life. In the early days of this tour, I was a stressball trying to keep her on some semblance of a schedule. But despite our best efforts, nap times were skewed, or missed entirely.

By the last 4 days of tour, I gave up completely on the schedule. My sister reasoned with me that Annabelle is a flexible baby, and that I should let it go. "It is what it is" were her exact words. So I stopped worrying about naps and bed "times", and let Annabelle give me the lead. By going with the flow, it meant she was going to bed later, but she seemed no worse for the wear, and I felt less obsessed and crazy about her so-called schedule. In fact, on a shopping trip at Whole Foods, a lady stopped me and said: "As a child psychologist, I'm going to tell you that you have a very happy baby." That felt like a pat on the back! Phew.

Katie and peanut, taking in a Good Lovelies show in Ohio.

Having Katherine on tour was great, and the added bonus of having A spend so much time with her auntie (and me being able to focus completely on the show) was getting to spend time with my little sister. We had a great time together. Unfortunately, she could only take a week off of work, and flew home from Cleveland early (stupid early) on Monday. We had two shows left, so I arranged with each promoter to have a babysitter to help out.

Monday's daytime show, at an all-girls private school (K-12) went off without a hitch. Annabelle was in her glory, squealing with delight at all the cute little girls, and hanging out with Angel, an alumnae of the school. She held Annabelle as she took a nap, and played with her during the show. Easy-peasy.

The Lovelies with the Laurel School team, and our babysitter Angel (centre).
Note: We toured this time with the awesome Steve Zsirai (left) on bass.
Pretty sure Annie has a crush on him!

On the other hand, Tuesday night's babysitting situation was, um, memorable. We were playing a house concert, and Annabelle was entrusted to a neighbour's daughter for babysitting. The 16 year old girl was hanging out with my baby upstairs while we played the show in the family living room. She was also joined by the host family's 16 year old son. Hmm.

They were "babysitting" in the room I was sleeping in (with the door closed), and looked quite flushed when I went up to check on the baby at set break. Annabelle was very upset, and held on for dear life when I tried to detach myself and head downstairs for the second set. The son called my baby "DEFIANT" (how nice is that?). I personally think Annabelle was annoyed at having to watch the two of them make out while she wanted to sleep. I am glimpsing into my future, and I don't like it!

Now we're home for a long stretch, and I'm going to catch up on some blogging, write some songs, get my voice back (more on that to follow), cook some harvest vegetables, hang with friends and family, deep clean the house and prepare for Annabelle's 1st birthday next week. This time last year, I was waiting excitedly to meet my little bean. And sleeping 9 hours a night. My how things have changed.

'Til next time,

Caroline

The Lovelies and Auntie Kate, road-nanny extraordinaire, onstage at Domenican University
River Forest, IL