It's all about timing

There's good timing.

It started with the sale of our house, which had been on the market for two months. We accepted a fantastic offer on Saturday evening. My due date was Sunday.

On Thursday morning, Kees was born. No more house showing, so no more unnecessary cleaning. This is a GOOD thing.

Then there is bad timing.

Yesterday, a week after selling the house, 4 days after Kees's birth, my Pepère (grandfather) passed away.

I want to be there for my mom, who has just lost her daddy. I know what that is like.

I want to be there for my Memère (grandmother) who has just lost her husband of 62 years. Col. Mustard and I were married on their 57th wedding anniversary.

Memère & Pepère provided the piano on which I learned to love music. We didn't have a piano, but my mom used to take me to their house to practice on theirs for the first 5 years of my lessons. Then, when opportunity arose, they gave my parents the money to buy a piano for my sister and I, who were both into lessons by that time. They used to pick me up from school and take me to my many music festival performances every year for all of my youth. They usually bought a festival pass, they were there so often.

They always made a point of attending every honor roll presentation, every speech competition, every poetry recitation, every award ceremony throughout my schooling. That's the kind of grandparents they were. That's the kind of Pepère he was to me.

Pepère loved my husband. He loved conversing with him about pharmacy (my husband's profession), faith, religion, and why we should go back to using trains instead of tractor-trailers and big trucks for transporting freight (this one came up a lot, for some strange reason).

Although we all knew that this was coming, as Pepère had been battling Alzheimer's fro the past few years, I was really hoping that he would hang in there until we moved back to our home province and that I would be able to see him again. Now, with the way the timing works out, it is actually impossible for me to attend the funeral. I have a 5 day old son, who is not able to fly due to airline policies, and even if he could, I am not entirely certain that flying for 8 hours, then driving for another 5 hours just to make it to the funeral wouldn't send me over the edge of complete mommy madness, as though having traditional baby blues and stitches isn't enough.

In a lot of cases, timing seems to bring everything together when you need it.

I guess this is just not one of those cases.

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!

Baby, you can stay in there just a while longer

I am due in 4 days. That's right, 4 days. I had Sacha at 37 weeks, so this is far longer than I have ever been pregnant, and I feel as though my skin just CANNOT stretch anymore. But it does. Every day I wake up, still pregnant, still having false labour, still waiting. Sacha brings me my tummy butter, reminding me that I AM still pregnant and that I'd better lather that stuff on if I want my skin to keep stretching without the stretch marks.

I look down at my tummy, and I feel as though it has its own gravitational force, as though it has its own mind and is clearly in charge, leading me forward like divining rods in search of ground water, only in my belly's case, it is leading me to a place I both fear and long for.

I wake up each morning, trying to decide what to do with Sacha in case this is the last day that I am ONLY his mommy. We play at the park. We bake. We play outside in the yard. And he wants me to hold him and cuddle him most of the day. He cups my face in his hands and gives me warm kisses, then lifts up my shirt and kisses the baby, reminding me that Sacha has no idea how his life is going to change when he has to share his mommy, nor do I. And I grieve at what I will lose when that day comes.

Then, while Sacha sleeps, I peer at my tummy, wondering who this little person is, and eager to be his/her mommy, too: to hold a little baby in my arms again, to nurse again, to watch my little child grow and discover the world the way its big brother is doing, to fill my heart with imaginable love the way Sacha did when he was born. And I am overwhelmed with excitement for the day when I become a mother again.




I want to meet you, but if you want to take your time getting here, I will wait. Your brother needs me, too.

I'm so cool, I just had to do it

UPDATE:

I am still pregnant. I have not yet sold my house. I still have a toddler who is waking up at night.

BUT...I have my own domain. I am now cheezewhizandmustard.com

For all you readers via feed, the new one is here. In all honesty, the old feed probably still works, so as long as you keep reading, that's all that matters!

For any of you who have me in your bookmarks, you can update them to the new domain. For any of you who have my blog address scribbled on a post-it note next to the computer screen, you can throw that one out and make a new post-it note that says "My favourite blog by Mrs. Mustard is now cheezewhizandmustard.com"

Now, in light of the fact that this post is for the most part full of useless information, I have decided to brighten your reading pleasure with random shots of the little dude, who may be hanging around with his crazy maman a little too much:

How YOU doin'?

You put the eye shadow on like so.

Easy Breezy Beautiful...