parental observation

2 year olds are just short teenagers with speech impediments.

moving along

These past few days have been fairly productive for me. I moved both kids into cloth diapers, set up a clothes line on our balcony and finally finished reupholstering our dining room chairs.

Before (ugh):



And, after:

My main reason for moving the kids to cloth diapers, well, LB really, was because potty training is going NOWHERE. She refuses to sit on her potty, she'll start crying if we plunk her down on it. So, I want her to get the feeling of what peeing her pants really feels like. It's kinda frightening how absorbent disposable diapers are, even though they are so convenient, especially for going out with the kiddies. Buying LB 3 pull-ups cloth diapers cost the same as 128 disposable (non-pull-ups) diapers for her. I know it pays off in the long run... but to get started, especially now with $ stuff being what it is, well it's tricky.

I'd like to get a part-time job, at least, I think I'd like to. I'd probably hate it once I started, because it would have to be an evening/weekend job.
But with Tom's work schedule now, he's often not home till 6:30 or 7 p.m. I really don't think it's going to work right now for us both to have jobs, especially since I'd like one of us to be with the kids, not just leave them with someone else. Not right now.

So since I'm not making any money (sale of random stuff pending) I'm trying to find ways to save money.

1. After today, Tom and I are going to somehow make his lunch for the next day each evening.

2. I'm researching what we can buy at Costco to justify the $50/year membership.

3. Selling a ton of pre-pregnancy clothes at a consignment store, and other random stuff via craigslist.

4. Buying clothes needed only at consignment stores (or Salvation Army or Value Village), especially for the kids, since they grow out of clothes so quickly anyway.

5. Buying bread at local bakery (comparable price and much healthier).

6. Buying fruit and veggies from weekly Farmers' Market. Meat, fish and bread also available. LB and I checked one out on Sunday morning. I think we'll make it a weekly thing.

7. I'd like to get rid of my cell phone but since I'm locked into a contract, I'm going to stick it out and just use it as little as possible. Will be using Skype more often. $35/year gets you unlimited calls to anywhere in North America. Since my parents are a long-distance call, as is my Oma this will come in handy. Especially since I only have 100 daytime minutes/month (unlimited incoming calls). Stupid cell phones. With the $35/year I'll be able to call my bro in the UK for 2.95 c/minute. Sweet.

8. NOT buying a 2nd vehicle for Tom right now. He thought he'd be getting a work vehicle at the end of the month, but now he might not be. I feel like I need my car to be able to take the kids different places other than just where we (LB) can walk. But maybe we can just make a point of having evening outings, even if it's just me and LB going somewhere. A girl I know is selling a deisel VW Jetta that's a year newer than mine... and I'm sorely tempted to buy it and sell mine, but... I love my car. And we're the only owners... and it'll be paid of in February. But maybe I should look into trading. It would help a LOT for when we visit Tom's folks, and my folks.

Hmm.

Freaky

This afternoon while I napped in my bedroom with my two kiddies, someone was on our balcony. That someone rearranged our balcony furniture and the kids' toys, opened the screen door and closed the glass door.

I was not notified that any work was to be done on our balcony... I didn't even know ANY balcony work was going to be done on our building until I saw the workers yesterday. But there is fresh caulking filling holes in our balcony railing, and a strip of wood with "WET CAULKING" written on it and balanced on my daughter's trike blocking the balcony door, so working they were.

Pissed though I am at the building management company for not notifying me, I went out and apologized for not moving our stuff out of the way for them beforehand. The guy on the ground replied, "too late now". I HATE it when people say snitty things like that, when I don't have to say fuck all to them in the first place. I replied that I had no been notified of the work to be done, otherwise the stuff would have been moved (and I would have been AWAKE). To which the guy replied "don't touch the black stuff" and the other guy on the ladder said "your vinyl (covering our balcony floor) is lifting pretty badly". Thanks for freakin' acknowledging my APOLOGY.

GUH.

Now to write a very pissy letter to the building management company. Guess this mood I've been in is going to come in handy after all.

Pits

LB is one month away from being 2, but I'd still remove the cherry pits before feeding her a cherry. My MIL feels differently, as I found out yesterday. Apparently, last week when LB spent the afternoon with my in-laws, she was being fed whole cherries. She didn't swallow any pits that they saw. But I remember when she spent a few days with them while I was in the hospital with LG, after I got home she had a HUGE upchuck in the middle of the night, covering herself. Within that mess were a bunch of cherry pits.

I think I'm really just never going to change my feelings on leaving my kids with them for longer than a few hours. They raised 2 children, but my MIL does things so differently, and there seems to always be something that I'm appalled at when I find out.

I guess there's only so much common ground to be reached.

Is vomituous a word?

If it isn't, it should be. It's the perfect word to summarize last night.

LB has had a cough for the past few days. I'm hesitant to take her to the doctor because they'd probably just give her a cough suppressant. But after last night, maybe that would be a good idea. Her cough isn't bad during the day, and she runs around and plays and yells and coughs a bit, but no gagging. That comes at night. Coughing, gagging on phlegm, then the puking.

We put her to sleep in our bed to keep an eye on her, and to do damage control if she started puking. She fell asleep and we thought we could to. Then, the coughing started. We sat her up to help try to clear things out for her... no luck. And we didn't get her out of the bed fast enough. Tom took her to the change table to clean her up, and she continued to cough and then a LOT came up, all over Tom. And then MORE, all over the change table, Tom, and the carpet.

Tom looked at me, and I looked at him, dripping puke... and I started to gag. Normally I don't have a bad gag reflex when my kids are throwing up, but this time, it was stomach acid and apple and I couldn't deal with it. The room stank. So Tom was left to get in the bath with LB and clean her and himself off. I moved a sleeping LG into her room, into his old cradle which is awaiting pick-up by friends of ours. He kept sleeping. I stripped off the bottom sheet on the bed and used the top sheet as a bottom sheet. Then when LB was out of the bath, I sat her down in front of the tv in her towel on the couch to see if she'd cough up more. She didn't, but she did pee on the couch before I could get a diaper on her. She seemed all right, so I laid down with her in her bed, and she fell asleep. I waited a few minutes, but all seemed well. So I moved a still sleeping LG back to his crib and crawled into our bed. 5 minutes later, more coughing. I ran to her room, sat her up, and she spat up again, on her bed. I handed her off to Tom again and stripped the bed.

.... I can't really remember what happened after that. It was 2:30 am. Eventually she fell asleep and woke up at 8:00, ready for her day. I woke up sick, having finally caught the bug that has been plaguing Tom and LB for the past few days.

So I feel ya, ghost, on the whole puke-o-rama ordeal.

This about sums up the night we had

Poor LB. Her fever was up to 39.2C / 102.5F last night all of a sudden. And LG is stuffed up and coughing... he slept through the night all right though. LB couldn't fall asleep till well after 3 a.m. even though she was SO tired. She kept just wanting us to hold her. And sitting and holding her wouldn't do. We had to stand and hold her. She's 30 lbs. That gets tiring after a while. We broke down and gave her some infant tylenol (ugh) but it took a couple of hours before she finally fully fell asleep. That was after spitting up on our bed, so she and I slept on the pull-out couch and Tom slept on the bed (with minimal bedding) to keep an ear on LG.

Today LB's fever is lower, but I know they tend to spike in the evening. LG is all snotty and coughing, but through it all, he's such a sweetie. He has these coughing fits, and then as soon as he's done he gives me a big dimply grin. Aw.

Gone

I've been meaning to write about this for a couple of weeks, but I haven't been able to. Tom did on his blog... but every time I think about it my chest starts to hurt...

One of Tom's co-workers got shot in the head a couple of weeks ago. He died, needless to say. He was Tom's age. He had a wife my age. And a son LB's age. I'd seen the guy at the last company Christmas party, seen him, and his wife, and his son had come over to play with LB. Now his son doesn't have a Daddy anymore. He got shot outside of a strip club. What he was doing there, I don't know. The newspaper article refers to him as a "gang associate". I just remember him as a big burly Russian with lots of facial hair. He looked like a friendly bear to me, the way his grin flashed out every now and then. I didn't talk to him or his wife at the party, I don't think. I'm just shy like that I guess.

He was murdered, and the cops apparently have no leads, even though there were lots of witnesses. I think about it all sometimes, and imagine being in his wife's place, like I imagined being in Michelle William's place when Heath Ledger died. It's heartbreaking... to think of those little kids never getting to know their Daddy.

And it's frightening to me, to think that I was that close to him, hell, Tom worked with him... and someone killed him. Gang violence is on the rise here, and I've been clueless. It was only once I met Tom and he pointed it out to me that I started noticing drug deals going down. Now I see them in my neighbourhood all the time. I was walking through the park this weekend with Lily and there were 2 guys at a picnic table with mean looking dogs OFF their leashes. We're talking pit bull-bull dog mixes or something. To me, youngish guys acting shifty who have mean-looking dogs just scream "dealer". Or dealer-wannabe anyway.

And I could go right into how I had to confront another guy and his girlfriend who had a huge rottweiler off it's leash right by the playground where around 15 little kids were running around screaming and playing. She was sneering at all the older folks who were looking at them in disgust as they lounged on a picnic table and let the dog wander. So I called her on it and said that having such a large dog off it's leash so close to a playground makes us parents nervous for our kids. The dude just shrugged and said "people stereotype". Hello? Don't those dogs have a tendency towards vicious behaviour? And you never can tell what could set a dog off.. really, with all the demand for dogs and all the inbreeding... we never knew our dog had epilepsy till he bit me. Bah. Stupid people. I told him there was lots more space farther up the park where there weren't kids and he made a motion like he hadn't heard me so I repeated myself and he just shrugged and said we'll only be here for a few more minutes. I said again that it made us nervous for our kids (just to get some kind of lame last word in)... trying to sound mature when I really just wanted to tear the guy a new asshole. But I can never do that in the heat of the moment. It's always after I'm home that I start to shake and all these things I should have said come to me. But they did keep the dog closer to them, maybe by stepping on his leash, and they left about 10 minutes later.

I try to be peaceful and nice to others and just treat others the way I'd want to be treated and sometimes I wonder what's the point if so many others are just out to get what they can and don't care who they hurt in the process, don't care how they make others feel as long as they protect their image.

Because sometimes I wonder...

I'm one of the only stay-at-home moms I know. Sometimes I feel lame because I don't have a job and I'm not contributing financially to our family's well-being. Sometimes I lump everything I do in a day into the phrase "stay at home with the kids".

But that's not fair to myself. Today, I took note of what I did... and I surprised myself.

My day started with going to bed around 1 a.m. after spending some time with Tom who didn't get home from work till around 11:30 p.m. On Sunday. Yes. Sucky.

Then...

Up at 6:45 to feed LG—LB got up at 7:15. Prepped Tom 2 chicken salad sandwiches to go with the salad I made the night before. Made LB a breakfast of whole-grain oatmeal with apple chunks, changed diapers, dressed the kids, packed the diaper bag, and got the kids in the car and off to Circle of Friends by 9 a.m. Getting there included the drive, and then carrying LG in his car seat (about 20 lbs all together) and the diaper bag and holding LB’s hand as we walked a block and then through a school. Followed LB around and played, did puzzles, coloured and read books till nearly 11 a.m.

Home a little after 11, LB fell asleep in the car—carried her (30lbs) in one arm and LG and his car seat (20lbs) and the diaper bag back up to the apartment. Ate lunch, caught up on some e-mails, fed LG, LB woke up at 1230, fed her a lunch of chicken salad on squirrely bread. Played with LB, put a load of laundry in, made butterscotch pudding and then off to the park at 1:30.

At the park, I watched LB as she climbed, played in the sandbox with her and and pushed her on the swing. Back home in a hurry at 3:00 with a hungry baby. Fed LG, had a snack with LB, watched 1 hour of TV with LB (aka mommy’s down time), made another batch of formula, changed the laundry loads and folded laundry, changed LB’s bed sheets, coloured with LB and then strapped LG into the Snugli, LB into the stroller and went to Safeway to get groceries, the bakery to get bread and the dollar store to get more bubble soap. Back home, emptied the dishwasher, prepped a dinner of chicken, rice and steamed carrots.

Now it's 6:50 p.m. LB and I have both had dinner and she is busy dusting everything in sight with our fuzzy duster. LG is sleeping but should be up soon for another meal. LB's bed time is 9:30, but we'll see if she falls asleep easily without Tom being home. He's working late tonight, which means he probably won't be home much before midnight.

I can't imagine how all the moms who also work full-time do it! Right now I'm feeling very lucky that I'm able to stay at home with our kids rather than spending 1/2 of my pay cheque each month for someone else to care for them. So really who cares that I don't make money.... cuddles from my daughter and giggles from my son are worth more than any pay cheque! :)

blog by hand

I was reading Ophelia and there was a mention of handwriting, and that got me thinking about your handwriting, and mine. I have a few books by a poet by the name of Tim Lander, and I intend to copy his layout style for my own little poetry book. In the intro, he writes "For me handwriting is like live reading - see the hand of the poet, hear the voice of the poet". All I'll say is that his books are handwritten (photocopied), and bound by hand as well. I love it. I love his poetry, and how he presented it.

Then I got to thinking about this blog, and decided to write an entry by hand, and then upload the photo. I'll admit I wanted to restart once I started writing... I felt the words weren't coming out well, and my hand wasn't writing well. But I didn't.

And here it is (click to enlarge):
Play along if you'd like.

10 minutes in my life

Tom comes out of the bedroom from changing LG's diaper and tells me that LB now says "powder" (as in baby powder... can you see where this is going?), but she says it like "pallow". I've heard her say that, but still my mind lingers on the cuteness of every word she mispronounces... and then my mind switches over--where is she?

On our bed, vigorously shaking "pallow" all over our unmade bed. That is to say she got it on the sheets and the comforter, and probably on the clean laundry.

I don't yell, or say NO or BAD... instead I quietly tell her that powder goes on bum-bums, not beds. Very seriously she looks back at me, only to say "Ya. Pallow. Bed." I repeat the part about powder only going on bum-bums, and she replies: "Ya. Pallow. Bum Bum."

Dang skippy.

Tom says he'll clean it up and I, much relieved, head off to have some microwaved rice for dinner, and try to unwind for 10 seconds while catching up on Dooce. 6 of those seconds go by before LB is clamoring to be UP because Tom apparently got out the "ya-foo" to clean up the "pallow". And so my 10 seconds of peace now includes a toddler in my lap who now wants to share my rice, even though she didn't want HER rice and chicken 5 minutes ago.

We go back to the kitchen where I get my second course: cheese. She's seen Tom with his juice and asks for some. I make her some diluted juice and grab some cheese. She sees this and hands me the cup saying "no" and reaching for the cheese. So I give her my piece of cheese.

Sigh.

Now she's sharing yo-yo with Tom, he's spoon-feeding it to her... and she's insisting not only that the yo-yo be in a bowl ("yo-yo. bowl") before she would have any of it, but also that bowl has to be on the high chair ("yo-yo. down") in front of her. So of course Tom asked her if she wanted the yo-yo brought to her suite... along with her boots.

I'm back

It's Mothers' Day. I'm just back from changing a mondo peanut butter poopie my son gave me. I even stuck my thumb in it.

I told my hubby not to get me flowers because they are so over-priced and die far too quickly anyway. We arrived home from my week at my parents' place at 1:30 this morning. I drove the entire 4 hour drive home because Tom had driven the 4 hour drive there only hours before. Plus I had a coffee. And I get car sick if I'm in a car but not driving. We hit a snowstorm about an hour into the drive. INSANE. The snow was coming so thick and fast it was hypnotic and I could barely see the road. I was crawling from white post to white post on the side of the road that didn't drop off the side of the mountain. But we made it home in one piece. And both kids woke up of course. LG just wanted to eat and then he went back to sleep, sweet boy that he is. But LB was wide awake and excited to be back home... and didn't fall asleep till nearly 4 a.m. in our bed... then LG woke up again to be fed around 5 a.m. and they both woke up again at 8 a.m.

Fortunately I'm a morning person for the first few hours of the day. I brought up a load of our stuff from the car, and when Tomek asked me what I wanted for breakfast, I realized I was jonesing for an omelette. We didn't have all the ingredients, so we popped the kids into their strollers and walked to the store for some ham and a green pepper. I enjoy making omelettes, even though they usually end up totally scrambled. Egg, with diced green pepper and onion (soaked in boiling water for 15 minutes to soften and sweeten), diced ham and shredded cheese. A good tip is to add 1 tbsp of water for every 2 eggs. That, with butter coating the bottom of the pan, guarantees a nearly no-stick omelette!

Then it was time for LB to nap, so I put her down, and as I was walking back down the hall, LG woke up. Of course. I'd hoped to nap when they both napped to catch up on sleep, but that isn't going to happen since LG is on my lap right now trying unsuccessfully to burp. Then he was crying and had the big dump I mentioned above, and LB started crying... so Tomek went back to bed with LB because I think she's having trouble sleeping on her own after sleeping with me for over a week.

What I'd really like to do today is clean out and organize the junk drawer in my dresser. If LB sleeps and LG calms down maybe I will.

I hope these things only come in 3s

It's Monday.
It's pouring rain.
My husband is pissed off at me.

I was right. I hate being right.

Especially when it means my little boy DOES have an umbilical hernia. It might heal itself by the time he turns 2, however, and I hope it does. If not, there's a procedure that'll need to be done to fix it. And turns out the red splotch on his left eyelid is a stork bite (birthmark) which may or may not get bigger.

Sigh.

Today is the day I go to the cemetery and hunt down my grandparents' graves. Perfect activity for a sunny day, eh?

By the way, Robynn's second daughter is arriving on Monday via c-section. Best wishes for a speedy recovery!

Why hate faith?

When I see how much comfort those parents get from believing their 2-week-old daughter is home with God when they had to let her because her heart was pumping blood back into itself, it makes me wonder why so many of my generation are on such religion-bashing trips. I may not believe in a God who decides things for us, but who are we to trash or belittle their beliefs when they aren't harming me in any way, and in fact believing what they believe is a far better way for them to cope than say... popping anti-depressants for the rest of their lives?

I don't understand when it became so taboo and narrow-minded and bigoted to speak out against homosexuality, yet belittling, negating and plain old making fun of others' religions, upbringings and in some cases ways of life is perfectly acceptable. Not only that, it's now funny, too!

Sometimes my generation really makes me sick.

at this moment

Also, I just purchased this print by A Softer World. It kicked me right in the gut.

Losing faith in doctors

We've been a nearly full house of sickies lately. I haven't caught the bug yet, thank goodness. But Tomek got sick about 2 weeks ago, and last week LG caught it as well. A few days ago, LB started looking a little feverish and now she's snotty and restless.

Lately we've also been worried about LG's belly button. It pops out sometimes and when we press on it (gently) we can hear liquid sloshing around right under the skin. I was worried he may have an umbilical hernia so I called his pediatrician last Friday to make an appointment. The appointment isn't until tomorrow, so on Friday I asked the woman who booked the appointment if she thought I should wait that long, given what our worry was. She happened to have a Dr. next to her and asked him/her. The Dr. said to bring LG in that day to see one of the walk-in clinic Drs. (His pediatrician has an office but it's a ways away and every Thursday he's at a walk-in clinic near where we live.) When Tomek got home from work he took LG to that walk-in clinic and the Dr. told him that a) that's just the way LG's belly button is and it'll probably be like that for the rest of his life and b) his temperature was half a degree (celcius) higher than it should be and we should take him to the emergency room at the hospital.

I'm waiting till our appointment with the pediatrician tomorrow to see if she was right about his belly button. I'm thinking she may have just felt it when it wasn't popped out. As for the emergency room visit... it never happened. We checked his temperature again when they got home, and it was 0.2 degrees LOWER than what it normally is when I take his temperature. It was 37.3C, which is just a tad above 98.6F. Was I going to take him to the emergency room and have him sitting in there for 3+ hours surrounded by sick people when a slight fever is just a sign that his body is doing what it's SUPPOSED to do and fighting something?

NO.

His fever is gone now, and he's fine other than a bit of congestion in his nose.

Maybe that Dr. felt she had to say that so it wasn't resting on her conscience. I don't know. But I'm getting really frustrated with the medical system here--the lack of doctors to be specific.

One of those nights

11 p.m.: LB is in her bed in her room, Tomek and I are in our bed, LG is in his crib. All are sleeping.

6:00 a.m.: I am in LB's bed, LB is in our bed, Tomek is on the couch in the living room, and LG is in his little blue chair, also in the living room. Only 2 are sleeping.

Beyond tired

LG didn't go to sleep till 2 a.m. last night and that was only after I left him to scream until he wore himself out. Horrible. Then he woke up at 5:30 a.m.

I think I can only take 1 more night of this although it would be good if I stayed longer since my parents and brother so rarely see us. My mom has evening classes Tuesday and Thursday so either we go tomorrow.... or not until Friday since she is the one to drive us home. And if it's going to be Friday I might as well get Tomek to drive out here after work and get us.

I don't know. I like being out here, but it's a lot of work and not a lot of rest... and Friday seems awfully far away.

In just two months...

...what a difference.

Caught

There's only one way to be caught by your kids, isn't there? And I thought it would never happen to us. After all, how hard is it to make sure a door is securely closed and/or locked? But caught we were, just moments after I glanced at the door and the thought flashed through my mind that the little sticky-outy bit has a habit of not catching completely even when it looks like the door is totally shut.. and the door looked totally shut so even if the ringing of my phone moments ago did wake LB up, she wouldn't be able to get into the room while Tomek and I were, uh, engaged.

Wrong.

Well, I was right about one thing. The ringing phone DID wake her up. Normally I hear her come out of her room because she bangs the door open. Didn't hear that this time. Didn't hear our door open either. I only found out LB was up and had caught us when I pulled back from some post-o kissing and Tomek looked to his left, off the side of the bed, and started laughing. I looked over too, and LB was standing there with a what the hell? look on her face. I started laughing, rolled off Tomek and casually covered him in a blanket, while saying hi to LB and asking her if she had a good nap. I wasn't worried about her seeing me naked because we bathe together and during the day she frequently visits me when I go potty. But we've stopped letting her see Tomek completely naked because she was getting a little too curious for comfort--as in, she almost grabbed him a couple of times in the bath.

I suppose it just looked like we were hugging... depending on how long she was standing there. Tomek has a memory of hearing his parents and then asking his dad what he was doing to his mom. (The answer was "giving her a massage".) Even then, I think he was 5, he didn't really believe his dad. I have no such memories.

And I guess I can count us lucky that we were making love the regular way and not orally. I mean, I probably would have reacted in the same manner, laughed and been casual with her. But it would forever remain a VERY awkward memory for me. This memory is just going to make me cringe a little, not a lot.