Wordless Weds: Reflections

It's been a productive morning

When Kees was hungry this morning, he kept asking me for different things to eat, none of which we had in the house.

So I got busy:

Buns, Banana-Oatmeal (and chocolate chip) muffins, chocolate-chip cookies in about 2.5 hours.

Boo-ya!

Wordless Weds: Lady Chubbington

[caption id="attachment_687" align="aligncenter" width="584" caption="Mommy doesn't feed me fast enough. I do it myself."][/caption]

It's berry season, bitches!

Every year I take the boys berry picking at a local U-Pick garden.  They have all sorts of veggies, but we go for the strawberries and the saskatoons.

Every year, I have grand ideas about how the kids are going to love this organic experience, eating berries off the plant, be good little boys and help me pick berries while dreaming of the goodies we can make with them.

Every year, this is what I get:

Is it unreasonable to make your kids walk 20 km home if they are too muddy to get in the car?
Is it unreasonable to make your kids walk 20 km home if they are too muddy to get in the car?

I actually had to get a Mexican worker, who speaks little English, to hose Sashimi down before I would even THINK of letting him into the car. Even then, mud like that does not rinse easily, and I had to strip him down to his underwear (to his great embarassment) in the parking area before letting him in.

Oh, and I should mention that Sashimi DID have shoes on when he arrived.  Rubber boots, actually.  But he told me they were giving him blisters, tore them off, and found gigantic mud bogs to jump in.

Will I learn my lesson by next year?  Stay tuned...

The Night I was 13...Again

When iBean was in the NICU, I saw that NKOTBSB (New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys, for the non-followers) was touring and that they would be in Edmonton.  I told Tony about it. He asked "Do you want me to buy you tickets?" I replied with "I am just giving you information.  What you choose to do with it is your choice."

Well, he bought me tickets.  Pretty good tickets.  As my friend and date Sara pointed out, we were close enough to see their armpit hair.

[caption id="attachment_656" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="Take it off Donnie!!"][/caption]

I had bever been to a "screaming" concert before.  I had been to Sarah McLachlan, Lilith Fair, Avril Lavigne and various other girly-artists.  But this was a whole other level of cool.

[caption id="attachment_657" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Opening mash-up number. Let the screaming begin!"][/caption]

I screamed and danced and sang along.  I went crazy (mild understatement) when Donnie came into our section and held my hand and sang "Tonight."

[caption id="attachment_660" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="OMG HE'S COMING STRAIGHT FOR ME!!"][/caption]

Their setlist was about two dozen songs and nearly as many costume changes.  We did not get out of there until after 11 pm, at which point I was not really sure if I would need hearing aids for the rest of my life. Or whether iBean would be screaming in the hotel room for my sisters, who were babysitting her, since I had been gone for five hours.

[caption id="attachment_661" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="BSB Ballad-a-thon. Be still my heart."][/caption]

But it was all worth it.  iBean slept the entire time I was gone.  And I got to experience being a 13-year old again, with significantly less acne and no worries about the legal issues of the Kids & Boys being over 18 while I wasn't.

[caption id="attachment_659" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="We're all legal, now!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_658" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Right Back Atcha"][/caption]

The T-shirt I bought says "Once in a lifetime."  I would not complain if it was twice.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJs6yGedpvM]

Hypertension - the sequel, or rather, the continuing story

iBean will be 6 months next week and my blood pressure has still not returned to normal.  At its peak in the hospital is was 182/133.  Every medical professional I tell that to is simply amazed that neither iBean or I stroked out.  It was a pure miracle that she came out as well as she did and that despite my high blood pressure, no lasting physical damage to my body or organs.

But I am still living with the hypertension. I slowly weaned down from my 17 (!!) daily blood pressure pills to the last one, and went off that last medication 15 days ago.  My blood pressure has not spiked back up, but it is slightly higher than it was on the meds. My diastolic pressure is borderline hypertensive, depending on the time (and day) I take it.  I was originally told in the hospital by the myriad of specialists that if my blood pressure had not resolved within 12 weeks postpartum, that I would most likely have chronic hypertension for the rest of my life.  I guess that is what I have to now face.  I was really hoping that once I was off all of the meds (and when you are on 17 pills a day, it takes a LONG time to titrate down!) my bp would normalize.

I was also told that I was at a substantial risk for this whole preeclampsia thing to recur should I decide to get pregnant again.  The specialists kept using the words conception planning appointments, high risk, specialist appointments, bedrest, hospitalization, premature delivery, possible organ damage, fetal death, maternal death should I decide to get pregnant again, particularly if my blood pressure did not resolve itself.

Or maybe not. I could get pregnant and everything would be peachy, just like my pregnancy with K-Man.

But 3 of my 4 pregnancies have had blood pressure issues.  Not full-on wars like this last one, but chances are, the next one would just make that number 4 out of 5.

Giving me the benefit of the doubt, my doctor (the man is a saint) is putting a requisition for another halter blood pressure monitor and giving me some more time to see if my body will bring itself back to normal.  There are things I can do: exercise (WTF is that?!), eat less salt (moment of silence as I say goodbye to soya sauce) and eat more beets (there are only so many beets I can consume in a day without wanting to yarf).

Tonight, I went for a walk.  I was farking tired, but while Ivy napped and Tony was home, K-Man hopped in the jogging stroller and we went for a brisk walk, about 3 km. The first real exercise I have done in almost a year. The goal to bring my diastolic blood pressure down is to do 20-30 minutes of "exercise" 4 times a week.  Not just running around after kids and up and down the stairs doing laundry.  I'm talking above and beyond that.  It would be WAY easier if I had an iPod that could actually hold all my dance/trance/upbeat music. Right now it is mostly consumed by stuff to listen to in the car while chauffeuring the kids around (Glee features prominantly).

High blood pressure is supposed to be for old people.  Not 29-year old size-4-wearing mothers.

It's a good thing iBean was worth it.

iBean at her maximum level of medical interventions, about an hour after her birth.

 

iBean at 5 months - we're hitting the beach, ladies!

The Pelle-Hydraulique Sweater

This was Sacha's birthday present.  He knew I was knitting this sweater for him, but due to some yarn shortages, I had to put it on the back-burner for the last month leading up to his birthday, so he managed to forget about it until he opened it. The pattern is from Handknits for Kids, knit in KnitPicks Swish DK yarn (merino).

I feared that after all this work, he would only wear it once.  So I made sure to get his 3-year old photos taken wearing the sweater.

A Caterpillar Cake

I mentioned that I was attempting to make the cake for Sacha's birthday alone.  I can make a tasty cake, but decorating a cake...not so much.

Sacha wanted a caterpillar cake.  Like the yellow and black fuzzy caterpillars that are common this time of year.  So this is what I made:



I baked the cakes in glass Pyrex bowls. The entire cake took 3 boxes of cake mix (I copped out there. I couldn't fathom making scratch cakes AND decorating them). I then made pudding whipped topping rather than icing, using 2 cups of whipping cream and 1 package of instant pudding. I then coated the cakes with yellow-dyed coconut flakes and shredded chocolate to make the cake look fuzzy. Then skittles for the eyes and mouth, pipe-cleaners for the antenna.



If I would have had more time, I would have decorated the cardboard base with green and brown, to make it look like grass. However, being pressed for time, since the whipped topping needs to be made the day of the party, I copped out there, too.

But the birthday boy didn't seem to notice.



Sacha and his friend Jakob thought it was fantastic.

And I feel a bit more domestic having bitten the bullet and done it myself.  Super-Sarah to the Rescue!

Words we rarely say

My sisters and I are close. We don't hide anything, we don't spare each other's feelings when we need to get something off our chest. But it seems as though we rarely take the time to utter the positive words brewing in our brains.

I am immensely proud of my youngest sister.

If you recall, I posted this letter to my youngest sister about 18 months ago.

Now, she is a fully (mostly) self-sufficient adult*. She loves her work and is fantastic at her job. On top of that, she seems to be finally understanding the meaning of budget and financial planning. I never thought I would say those words about her!

She is a part of the social committee at said work (I think she heads up the committee) and organizes charity fund raisers and so on. She has a wonderful man in her life, who supports her in everything she does and who grounds her in reality and humour. And she supports him, even when things seem not so great (he was recently laid off - a sign of the times, in this case). Now I cannot wait for them to get married so that I can stop calling him my favourite brother-in-common-law.

I am also deeply proud of my other sister.

She took a bold leap, quit her job (which paid well, but she loathed) and decided to take the plunge and go back to school to get an animal biology degree. This involved uprooting her and her husband, moving 500 km away, taking upgrading courses just to get into university, and working part time to support her nasty schooling habit. All the while, she has aced every course she tackled. I think she got 97% on her Chemistry 101 final. That or 100%. I cannot keep her ridiculously high grades straight. She is definitely heading towards a scholarship. All the while, she still manages to keep the glimmer of hope alive that she will, someday, provide my children with cousins. I will keep all my baby gear just for you, my sweets.

I love you, Talia & Stef. I am so proud of both of you.

Now make babies, k?

* I say mostly because she still calls me every friggin time she makes scotch meatloaves, even though I have given her the recipe numerous times, and it is posted on my blog.

Nostalgia

I set a little naked-bumed Kees up in his crib, sitting amidst a pile of pillows, and let him play with his crib aquarium. I then sat on the nursing chair, and watched the back of his head as he grabbed the toys, kissed the fish, and toddled from side to side, each time regaining his balance and squaring himself off to a proper sitting position. I watched him in silence until he turned around, remembered that I was there, and flashed me an ecstatic toothed grin. He turned around and resumed playing. And I resumed my motherly vigil.

I was not nostalgic when Sacha grew from an infant to a baby, from a toddler and into an opinionated two-year old. I remember being so anxious for him to be old enough to eat solids, big enough to sit on his own, and old enough to talk. Old enough to go to a sitter without screaming for his maman.

A second time mother is more educated in that respect.

Kees is already 6 months, and I miss him as a new-born infant. My sweet suckler who slept all the time, with his melodious hums and ahs as he sang himself to sleep.

Now, he has two teeth, and bites my shoulder when he gets excited. He rubs those little chewing implements on my breast when he nurses, testing out his new eating tools. He tackles his older brother, pulling his hair, kissing (or tasting, I'm not sure) his ears. He giggles at fart noises (his brother's) and pulls the cat's tail. He loves to read, especially "Where is Baby's Belly Button?" with the large flaps to pull on and flip over time and again. At the end of the day, he nuzzles his head onto my shoulder when he's tired, and calmly lets himself drift to dreamland.

I relish every minute of these sweet 6 month moments, because I know that soon enough, he, too, will be a terrible two, shaking his head "no" when I ask him to pick up his toys or stop dumping his crackers on the floor. He, too, may scream and throw a fit when I tell him that he cannot have anymore advent calendar chocolates. There are beautiful moments in Two-land, but I can wait.

I love my sweet Kees. Just as he is. Right now.

Kees and the No-Hawk

After receiving many questions and comments (mostly from relatives or close friends) about Kees's new do, and getting tired of hearing myself tell the story over and over, regardless of how humorous they thought it was, I decided to buzz it.



Sarah: 1

Faux-hawk: 0

Any questions?

I am a Mother of BoyS

He's here!

The juicy details are:

Water broke COMPLETELY in my bed and all over my floors at 11:40 pm May 14th. Must now get feather bed dry cleaned.

Arrived at hospital at midnight, leaving a trail of water as I walked from the car to the entrance. Stripped down to housecoat in elevator due to disgusting leakage in pants and crocs.

Normally there are no anaesthesiologists at night, so no epidurals. I tried the laughing gas, but it made me want to toss my cookies. I tried the morphine-gravol drip, it did nothing. The contractions seemed so much worse this time than with Sacha. Tony had to leave the room a few times during them (nurses took care of me) because he thought HE was going to toss his cookies from seeing me writhe in pain. My doctor pulled some strings and I got an epidural at 3:30 am. I have never been so happy.

Started pushing at 6:50 am, and by 7:12 am on May 15th, the doctor announced that we had a baby boy. We both took a real hard look at his penis, as we both thought that it would be a girl. Turns out intuition is NOT always right ;)

Birth stats to satisfy your curiosity:

• Name: Kees Victor


• weight: 7 lbs 6.5 oz


• length: 18 3/4 inches


• His name is pronounced Case, but Kees is the Dutch spelling of it, and since he is named after Tony's paternal grandfather, who was Dutch, we kept the Kees.


• Victor was my paternal grandfather


• He is 2 lbs heavier than Sacha was at birth, but only 1 inch longer.  This makes for excellent chubby cheeks and a cute double chin.  He came home from the hospital in a sleeper that Sacha only fit when we has over 1 month old

I've been told it takes a special woman to be a mother of boyS. Here's hoping I'm the right kind of special!

My 19 month old can read!

Ok, that title may be a little deceiving. Sacha cannot read actual words, per se. What he can do, however, is pick out, with his keen observational skills and his ridiculous omniscience, a variety of logos and locate every object in the house (or city) that has the same logo, even if Col. Mustard or I have never noticed these before.

I present to you The Dictionary of Sacha-ese.  Please note that these items are not in any sort of alphabetical order, nor order of importance in his mind.


This one means "Bob the Builder" and "Thomas the Tank Engine".



This one is fairly obvious, right?



This one means "the place where we go to get Thomas videos, and MUST continue to obtain Thomas videos at every possible occasion."



This one means "eating, timbits, coffee, Mmmm."



This one means "the place where we buy bananas."  Yes, they sell bananas, but they also have very narrow aisles and really cramped self-bagging quarters, which are not to my liking.  But we buy bananas there.



This one means "Maman and Sacha's car." Not to be confused with Daddy's car, which is a Kia Rio.  Not that there is anything wrong with Kias.  But I love my Prius.  Sacha loves his Prius.  He points to it and declares that it is HIS car.  I then remind him that it is OUR car.  I don't think he buys it.



This one means "the place where we go buy toilet paper." I have no idea why he thinks we buy toilet paper at A&P. I don't even really like shopping there, since their shelves are poorly stocked and the prices aren't that great. Although, on second thought, this association may be due to the fact that he saw me use a plastic A&P bag as a garbage bag in our bathroom.  And the garbage is located beneath the toilet paper roll.



This one means "the place where Maman bought her new vacuum."  Which apparently only Maman uses.  Not to be confused with Daddy ever vacuuming.  Or cleaning in general.  In Sacha's eyes, only Maman cleans.  Not only that, it is what I spend most of my day doing.  Except when I am on the toilet: while on a little shopping trip to Home Depot with his Daddy, Sacha pointed to every toilet and declared "Mama!".  But that's a whole other issue I may have to take up with him at a later date.



This one means "everything in our bathroom, especially cough drops and generic antacids which Maman must consume every day."



This one means "vacuum, fridge, waffle maker, blender, play kitchen, and hot sauce."  Not too sure how the hot sauce has come to be labeled as Kenmore, but then again, I do NOT spend all of my time vacuuming or on the toilet. Seriously, I don't.  Ask my husband.  Wait, don't.

Aren't you impressed? I know I am.

Bad Kat-ma

Mr. Dash had it coming.

I know I should have stopped it. But I didn't.

I just thought it was a very creative way for Sacha to express his distaste for Mr. Dash's annoying habits. That, or it was just too funny to stop. What's more, Mr. Dash didn't move. He just sat there and let Sacha cover him with Dora bling. I guess Dora rocks his kitty-world or some such nonsense.

Sacha then decided to play a little hide and seek with Mr. Dash. Or maybe he just wanted to placate him with stuffed animals so that he would go to sleep and shut the hell up.

Hmmm...definitely NOT hide and seek. Maybe squish and squeak is more like it.

I know I should have stopped it, but if Mr. Dash wants to sit there and take it, I'm certainly not going to bed over backwards (or do any sort of bending at this point) to free him of his torturer. Besides, I think Dash kind of likes it, the masochist that he is.

Or he realizes that Karma is a bitch.

Or a son of a bitch. And his name is Sacha.

PETA's worst nightmare

Happy Easter!

Sacha's hand-painted eggs 

Hi, my name is Chatters

Meet Chatters.

Chatters was given to me from a friend when my dad died 8 years ago. I hung on to it for some reason until now, and it's a good thing. In the past 3 weeks, Chatters and Sacha have become best friends.

Sacha, in his infinite toddler wisdom, has taken to teaching his penguin friend many things. When they first acquainted themselves, Sacha came to get me from the kitchen, where I was cooking/eating/marfing down the rest of my birthday cake, and brought me to the bathroom, where Chatters was apparently going "ca-ca" (french for poop). Chatters was bum-immersed in the toilet.

When I then tossed Chatters into the dryer (the toilet was clean), Sacha stayed vigil, turning his head around and around for 20 minutes until Chatters emerged, relatively unscathed.

The next day, Sacha taught Chatters about cleanliness: I was showering, Sacha was playing.  I hear him call "mama", turn around, see his grinning face, and find Chatters behind me, soaking up my soapy rinse water.

Chatters and the dryer partied it up.

Sacha then got sick.  Chatters became his de facto snot-rag confidante.  The sheer volume of snot and phlegm that Chatters endured surely sealed their fate as soul mates forever.

Now there is just the matter of giving Chatters a real bath (washing machine) without Sacha jumping in after him.

-----------

On a different note, thanks for the nice comments and concerns over my being sick.  Sacha's pneumonia was passed to me in the form of a wicked cough and cold.  I couldn't sleep from coughing and wheezing, I was using my husband's ventolin multiple times a day just to get a decent breath.  Add to that the fact that every time I coughed, I peed.  Brilliant. I saw the doctor, who told me that I just have to ride it out, both the peeing and the coughing.  So now I am still fighting the cold, but at least the cough is mostly gone.  Sacha is doing good, too.  The medicine worked wonders for him.  I wouldn't know, personally...damn pregnant drug-boycott.

Higgledy-Piggledy with Numbers

Number of names given to our cat, Mr. Dash, (who meows incessantly at Sacha's door when he is sleeping) on any given day: dozens, including but not limited to:

• dumbass


• jackass fuckface


• Idiot! (think Napoleon Dynamite)


• fucker


• jerkwad


• ass bandit


• retard


• shithead


• pig


• fucking cat


• stupid cat


• DASH!


• dickface


• fuckweed


• ass hat


• dickhead

---------

Number of train and/or train related toys in our house to satisfy Sacha's obsession with all things train: 0

Number of pool pumps sitting in our storage room that Sacha thinks are trains and insists on riding: 1

Number of Thomas the Train videos viewed on YouTube: infinity squared

---------

Number of socks designed and intended to fit a Winnie the Pooh doll: 0

Number of socks Sacha thinks are rightfully Winnie's: 2, my newly finished knit Thistle Socks, which Sacha took off my warm feet and put on his Winnie.

--------

Number of soothers hacked up, destroyed and garbaged in the last week: 10

Number of soothers still remaining in the house: 5 (we think, although Sacha has been known to stash them for future dry spells)

Number of soothers that are actually fully intact: 3 (the other 2 have teeny holes pierced in them)

Number of soothers required by the little dude to go to sleep: 2 (an improvement from 3, which was the standard until last week).

Number of times I wish I had taken the fucking thing away a long time ago: the integral of infinity raised to the power of x.

--------

Number of child-mullets waiting to be rectified by a competent stylist: 1 (but a very important 1)

Number or rockin' haircuts received in the past week: 1

What's your number, baby?

Not just for looks

I like to think of myself as a bit of a tree-hugger: I use cloth diapers, I wash my clothes in cold water, I dry my clothes on a clothesline (weather permitting), I drive a hybrid, I use compact fluorescent bulbs, energy-star rated appliances, and I use eco-friendly grocery bags.

That is, I bring my eco-bags to the store and assume that the store that sold me the eco-friendly bag will know that I want them to pack my groceries IN said eco-friendly bag.

Ah, what a nice bag! I feel great that I am saving some landfills from all those plastic bags!

Wait, what is that?? A plastic bag WITHIN an eco-bag?  How the hell does that work?

When I bought my milk (you can see which store from the bag), I placed my eco-bag on the counter next to the milk, assuming that the cashier would get the hint and place my milk in her store's eco-bag. Obviously she was not that smart. Instead, she placed my milk in one plastic bag, my two bottles of water in another plastic bag, then put them in my eco-bag.

This is where I go:

Are you fucking kidding me? For real? Why the hell would a store market and sell eco-bags and then not tell their cashiers to use them? Furthermore, why the hell would I want you to put my milk and pop in separate plastic bags, then put both of those bags into an eco-bag?

Now, I cannot blame the store in question as being the only culprit. I have also shopped at Walmart, boasting its own brand of eco-bags, and the handitard cashier, even after I told her to put my groceries in the eco-bags, continued to plastic bag everything and then place them in the eco-bag. Then there are the cashiers that get their curlers in a knot when I insist that it's ok to place my deli meat next to *gasp* my bread in the same bag, like so:

I mean, for crap's sake.  The deli meat is double-wrapped in plastic as it is, and the bread is already in a paper bag from the bakery.  I think it's ok that they sit next to each other. Getting along is a virtue I love in food.

I don't use eco-bags because they're pretty. I use them to help the environment.

So damn you stupid companies who sell these bags, tell your cashiers to USE THEM!