Out of the mouths of kids - part two.

When we bought this house at the beginning of the year, one of the things we knew we would have to do was get the roof replaced. So for the past two weeks, we have had roofers here during the times it hasn't been raining - and since we are in Vancouver, they are here about once day per week. At the rate these guys are going, I think that they will still be putting on the new roof a couple of months from now, and I may just have to invite them for Christmas dinner.

One day last week as I was leaving the house I was trying to be extra careful as there were cedar shingles strewn all over the driveway from the old roof that the guys were removing. I had Renee in her carseat and I was holding Nicholas' hand trying to make sure that he navigated the mess without too much trouble. Unfortunately, I wasn't watching myself too closely and I stepped on a nail that went right through my shoe and into my foot. So off to the doctor I went, with all three kids in tow, and got my tetanus shot and a week's worth of antibiotics.

That night as Nicholas get his pajamas on he got his foot caught. "Jesus C****t", he said. Ken stopped in the doorway, turned around and said "Nicholas, where did you hear that?". "That is what mommy said when the nail went into her foot". So Ken came downstairs and told me what happened. I figured that since I had only said it once, and if we don't over-react when he says it, hopefully he will forget it and keep his mouth shut.

Fast forward a few days. Nicholas is playing with my dad in our rec room. I get home from running some errands and ask how things went. Dad tells me that Nicholas is quite good at balancing on the furniture. He proceeds to describe a game they were playing where Nicholas climbs up one side of the couch, walks across the top and jumps off the end. After about the fifth time of doing this (!!!!) he stubbed his toe. So my dad tells him to put a pillow on the floor and aim for that. So he does. And misses. And says as clear as day "Jesus C****t!!!". Dad says it is one of those times that you want to burst out laughing but you can't. So he tells Nicholas that isn't a nice word. Nicholas goes up on the couch again, jumps, misses and cusses. So my dad tells him to say Geronimo instead. So once again, Nicholas balances on the couch (did I ever mention that safety is my background???) jumps off, and says "geron....geromemee....geronmoo....oh Jesus C*****!!!!".

Out of the mouths of kids...

This year "back to school" was quite a time in our house - Ethan started kindergarten, and Nicholas started preschool.

On Ethan's first day, he was so excited and couldn't wait to meet all his "new friends" and play with all the toys. Since we just moved into the area where we are now, we didn't know anyone at the school, and since Ethan is my oldest, I didn't really know what to expect.

Well, that first day consisted of going to school, staying for about 10 minutes to take attendance, and then leave. Ethan promptly told me after that episode that he would like to go back to preschool and that kindergarten pretty much sucked (well he didn't exactly say that, but it is what he meant).

As the week went on, kindergarten was one hour per day. Just enough time for him to be convinced that school was pretty cool, and as long as he got to play it was all good. One hour wasn't quite long enough for us to go back home though, so when Ethan was at school, Nicholas and I went for long walks to kill time until we had to pick him up. We are lucky that the school is close to a big forest and a good sized lake, so we would walk around those areas and explore.

One morning, we came across a man walking his weiner dog. Nicholas was in love. "Look at that puppy mommy" he yelled at me as he ran towards the poor terrified dog to give him a cuddle (we are working on the whole asking-the-owner-if-we-can-touch-the-dog thing, but Nicholas usually forgets until he is just about on top of the poor terrified animal). Luckily this dog didn't freak out, but she wasn't overly interested in Nicholas and just wanted to get on with her walk. Unfortunately for her, the owner was only too happy to talk to Nicholas.

After a few minutes, Nicholas thanked the man for letting him pet his puppy. The owner then told Nicholas that the dog wasn't a puppy at all, since she was 8 years old she was an "old lady". Nicholas gave the dog a snuggle and we were off.

A few minutes later, a woman was walking towards us with her small dog. Nicholas in his best three-year-old voice (with no volume control) yelled out "hey mom, look at that old lady"! Of course he meant the dog, but she didn't know that. She just gave me a dirty look, muttered something under her breath and stormed past us. Honestly, I was just barely able to keep it all in with out exploding into fits of laughter.

Happy sack and man tubes - part deux

Yesterday was a big day in our house. It was the official event marking the end of ever having another child (well, I guess it is official when Ken is confirmed to be shooting blanks).

I wrote about his consultation for the snip way back in October of 2005. Yes, it was almost TWO years ago that he went in, talked to the doc, and picked up the infamous bag of recovery goodies that would help him through this very trying and traumatic event. Note the sarcasm from a woman who has given birth three times with no drugs, and nothing more than a couple of expired extra strength tylenols to take home after delivery. I am thankful though that Ken got a case of cold feet at that time and didn't book his actual snip, because if he did, Renee wouldn't be here now.

After Renee was born, I was 100% positive that I don't want more kids. So Ken had to go for consultation #2, I told him that if he left the doc's office without an appointment WRITTEN IN PEN in his calender it would be grounds for divorce.

All last week I think he was sweating bullets. He had a countdown every morning that went something like this:

"Anna, in only X more days, I will make the ultimate sacrifice for this family - and I will need at least a week to recover, as I have been told it will feel like I have been kicked HARD in the nuts"

As you probably can imagine, response each morning varied and after I had heard numerous times about how much prep work was required (shaving, washing, etc) I offered to give him a good swift kick myself and we could just get it over with. I think Ken seriously considered it.

Yesterday morning he went into the office, and got to chatting with a gentleman in the waiting room who had just had the procedure. Ken said he didn't look too good, and the only advice he gave Ken was to "take the lollypop when they offer it to you". Huh? You get a lollypop?

He later found out that the lollypop is designed to get your mind off the "business at hand" so to speak. Before the snip itself, Ken found himself sucking away at his lime lollypop while a kind nurse candidly pointed out that his shaving skills left much to be desired so she would need to "clean things up down there". I don't think Ken will ever look at a lime lollypop the same way again.

The procedure itself took seven minutes. We are told recovery time will take about seven days. Ken did well, and he is recovering nicely. Considering it is only the day after I am pretty impressed. The only hiccup so far is that Renee managed to give him a baby kick to his newly neutered parts, just to remind him that us women stick together, and she didn't want him to get off too easy. That's my girl!

I forgot

A few nights ago before I went to bed something happened and I thought to myself "now that is a great thing to blog about", and at the time I thought that I really should write it down because I may forget. But of course I didn't write it down. And now that I have had a couple of completely sleepless nights thanks to my wee teething baby girl, I have no idea what the hell was so damned interesting that I would put it out there in cyberspace. But I am sure it was good and riveting. You'll just have to trust me on that.

Coulda, shoulda, didn't...and now I'm paying for it.

I just finished watching a bootcamp show on tv. I really should sign up for something like that to help me shed some of this baby weight. Of course, the fact that my hubby just walked in the door with an oreo cookies and cream blizzard from Dairy Queen won't help in my quest for sveltness. What's worse is that I wasn't even hungry. My brain told me to put the blizzard in the fridge after a few mouthfuls. My hand kept scooping all that ice creamy goodness into my gullet. My brain said "stop". But I didn't. And now that I have finished the whole damned thing I feel like I want to barf. As my good friend J says, "tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes". Perhaps tomorrow starts my new run at sveltness.

Tis the season....

For weddings! I was recently going through some photos I had taken at weddings, and here are some of my favourites from two that I was at in the past years. I was going through a bit of a "sepia" phase...

Here is my friend D and her new husband (well, not so new anymore, they have been married for three years!)

And here is my brother and his wife (happy 2nd anniversary guys!). She looked stunning....

holiday? Today was a holiday????

A funny thing happens when you find yourself a stay at home mom. Being on maternity leave is wonderful, but there are no holidays.

When I am not on maternity leave I work part-time for the government (ok, insert joke HERE). When I worked, I loved my holidays. I looked forward to them and started counting down about a week beforehand. AND contrary to popular belief, us government workers have the same holidays as everyone else.

Now that I am at home I am kinda floored when a holiday comes. Today was one of those days. It was BC day. I totally forgot. Ken was home from work, so I just assumed it was Sunday - until he didn't go paddling. I tell you, I get all screwed up when a holiday is thrown in the mix. The kids are totally oblivious that a holiday is here. They still get up at six. There is no such thing as sleeping in on a holiday when you have three young ones.

I am also kinda hesitant to go anywhere when there is a holiday. There are lineups at ferries and borders. In hot cars with three kids, two of whom need to pee RIGHT NOW and there is not a toilet or bush in sight. And all the stuff you need to bring - strollers, playpens, toys, blankets, food....the list goes on. What happened to the carefree backpacking and roaming the world days? Oh yeah - we grew up. We got a minivan. We have to fill it full of crap every single time we go out. So it is just that much easier to stay home and enjoy the "holiday".

Little Miss Hair

Quite the lid on my wee girl....

CRAP

Ken just got back from the storage locker with the last load of boxes that we put there before we moved. When we put the house on the market in January, we had to do some serious de-cluttering to make the place look better (HGTV would have come in REALLY handy then). Since we had absolutely no storage at all we had to rent the locker.

Our house was a rancher, about 1700 square feet. Our new house is about 2800 square feet, and guess what? We can fill every space in this new place. People who have visited us in the new house have commented on how we have managed to fill all of the rooms even though this place is so much bigger than the previous house. And this was BEFORE we emptied the storage locker.

I just about fainted when I saw the FIRST vanload of stuff. And by vanload, I mean pull-out-all-the-seats and fill up the van to the top. So much so that the bumper was not too far off the ground (a lowered minivan - we have reached a whole new level of cool).

I must admit it is a bit like Christmas - opening up each box to see what I haven't missed at all in the last 6 months. I have only opened up three boxes today - mostly thanks to my newly teething daughter who won't let me leave her sight for a second. My poor mom is going to faint when she sees the spare room, which up until yesterday had a bed, a nightstand and a light. Now she will have to share the room with a desk, and ab-roller, and about 14 boxes. We won't even go into what is in the closet. My mantra of "if you can't see it - it doesn't exist" still reigns supreme.
I am almost starting to think we should have had a garage sale and just sold all the boxes un-opened. Kinda like a grab-bag of sorts. Twenty bucks a box – you might get a box full of toys, or a box full of CD’s. At any rate, I doubt I would have missed any of it.

Why?

Ever since we moved a couple of months ago I have become and HGTV and TLC addict. Not only because this house needs ALOT of work (and I can't think of any designs to save myself) but because we now have cable. In our old place all we had was bunny ears, but since they didn't work in the new house, we decided to bite the bullet and pay for tv. "Treehouse" is now a part of the boys' vocabulary .

The other day I was watching "A baby story" while feeding Renee. When I used to watch it I would cry happy tears - probably because at that time we were trying for kids, and I had NO IDEA how painful childbirth could be. Now that I know we are done with the babymaking, the show doesn't have same effect on me (I still get a bit emotional when the baby is born, but not like I used to). The other day though I was so pissed that I turned the show off. There was a young girl who was in labour and obviously was given an epidural - she was having contractions while getting her nails done at her bedside, and just after the doctor checked her and told her she was 10cm, she pulled out her phone book and started calling all her friends to come to the hospital because she was just about to push. I kid you not, she must have called at least five people, giggling and laughing telling them that "OMG I am 10 cm, and cool, I'm going to push and have a baby".

I distinctly remember being 10cm with all my kids. And I was in NO position to talk, never mind call my girlfriends. I was in so much pain. And yet watching this show made me ticked that maybe I missed out on something by not having an epidural (first kid was by choice, the other two, not at all). I cannot even begin to put into words the pain. With Renee, I asked for the epidural at about 11 am, they came to test my blood about 40 minutes later, and then NOTHING. Renee was born at 2:15 pm. It was like they totally forgot about me. Sigh. At least I know that I never will have to give birth again!

AHHHH.....

You know the feeling when you have found the PERFECT piece of clothing? I am the first to admit that I don't have the most up-to-date or edgy fashion sense. Most days if I get a clean pair of pants and shirt on that match I am doing well. I recently bought a couple of pairs of light cotton pants with the intention of wearing them around the house - they fit well, were lighter than sweat pants and cheap. Little did I know how comfortable they were, or that I would even wear them out in public - especially when the tag says the pants are from the "sleepwear collection".

The first time I wore the grey pair was to the movies. I was going for comfort, not style, and I knew that no-one would be paying any attention to me, so what the heck. I loved the fact that I was comfy, and it felt almost as though I was at home hanging out on the couch.

Last week it was so gross and rainy here in Vancouver (surprise!!!) that I decided to wear the dark blue pair to the boys soccer class. I have never in my life received so many complements - not on the pants, but on how good I looked for just having had a baby. These pants hid my weight - and hid it well. I love them so much that I feel like I could be Oprah - I want to give a pair to everyone in the audience (and I so totally could afford it as there are only two of you!)

Stuff

Three months is a long time to leave a blog neglected. I get so ticked when I look at blogs I regularly read and they haven't been updated in a few days. And it isn't as if I don't have blogging moments. Many a time during the last few weeks something would happen and I'd think - I really need to blog about THAT.

I have been busy with the kids, Ethan is driving me a bit crazy as he is now done preschool and he has to look at my ugly mug every day - so he has developed a bit of an attitude in part because he isn't seeing his friends as often as he'd like. "Whatever mom" has been uttered on more than one occasion, and the stomping and dirty looks have increased exponentially since the end of June. Maybe this is just a part of being five. I hope not. If that is the case it will be pure hell once Nicholas reaches that point.

Speaking of the second born, I think we can now "officially" say he is potty trained. He regressed when we moved and when Renee was born, but now he is doing very well. Thank goodness. Of course now that I have put that down in black and white I have likely jinxed myself.

Little miss Renee is doing great. I can't believe she is four months already. And the hair on that child - it is what EVERYONE says when they first see her. I have stopped trying to do anything with it and I just leave it in the natural mohawk. What the hell - it looks cute on her.

She has also started to suck her thumb - which is great at night - if she wakes up she just pops her thumb in her mouth and soothes herself back to sleep. We have had a few nights where she has slept through the night and it makes for one less grouchy mommy.

Speaking of eyelashes...

Lazy post - I didn't realize how long my niece's eyelashes were until today...they are amazing. Renee is still working on hers.

Can someone please tell me why beautiful eyelashes are wasted on BOYS?

Case in point. My eyelashes suck. My sons don't get their beautiful lashes from me....

Oops.

I honestly thought that being at home would give me an opportunity to blog more and pull my camera out and actually take some pictures of my new wee girl. Yeah right. People are dumbfounded when I tell them that the pictures I took in the last post are pretty much the only ones that I have of Renee on her own (I have a few of the boys and her, but I really want to get some nice arty farty type ones of her that I can put on the million thank-you cards I have to get done at some point).

I am still working at one of my jobs, which thankfully is over in a couple of weeks. I am teaching a distance education course at one of our local post secondary institutions, and it is all good - except the marking. Final exams and final assignments, and 40 students all wanting their marks RIGHT NOW. It is funny being on the other side of the fence - teaching instead of being a student and stressing about the next paper I have to write. It is a different kind of stress now, I want to be sure that I am fair to all students when I am marking their papers. It is funny how some students just "get it" and others are so far in left field it isn't even funny. By kid #3 I am quite good at the multi-tasking, and have managed to get breastfeeding and marking done all at the same time.

Introducing Renee

Well, she came early - 11 days to be exact - born on Sunday afternoon. She was 8 lbs, 12 oz and I cringe to think how big she would have been had she decided to stay put until her due date. Labour was no picnic, longer than Nicholas, shorter than Ethan. Still hurt like hell - but she was worth every second.

She totally looks like Dad, she certainly didn't get that hair from me!

Out of the mouths of babes....

Ethan is at the age where he is obsessed with all bodily functions and body parts, especially those ones that some people can get mighty squirmy about. For the most part I try to be very forthcoming and answer all his baby related/body related questions honestly (and most of the time I manage to keep a straight face, but not always).


When Ethan was smaller, my brother and sister-in-law bought him a book entitled "All about Scabs". He loved that book. So, since "poop" is the theme of the month, I bought him a book as a "present" from the new baby, do you think I might be encouraging him much?




The other day when Ethan was out with my Mom, those "questions" came up again. Thankfully my mom is around here on a regular basis and has had a front row seat to my explanations about babies, poop, intestines and childbirth to Ethan, so she isn't totally taken aback with some of the things that come out of his mouth. They were at the mall, and mom had to go into a clothing store to look at some tops. On the way out, Ethan asked her why mannequins don't have penises. We have gone over the girl/boy body parts list a number of times, but I guess since he saw breasts on some, he naturally wondered why the boy bits weren't on others. I have no idea what my mom told him, but I am sure the number of shoppers that heard Ethan ask would have loved to know her answer.

A bit of pampering.

Today I spent some time with my SIL and we got our toes done. It was so nice to just relax and chill, because I know that I won't be in for that type of pampering for a long time once the baby is born.

Before Ethan was born, I painted my toes blue. At the time I had hoped to do one foot pink and one foot blue (since we didn't know what we were having), but after struggling to get the polish on, I just did both feet blue. With Nicholas, I was just too darned big to reach my feet, so I didn't do anything at all. So for this wee babe, I decided to go all out and here are the results - I made sure to get both pink and blue...

Wordless Wednesday

So....boy or girl? And the "?" isn't photoshopped in, it is actually on the shirt!

Insomnia

It is 4:30 am. I am wide awake, and I can't even blame the kids. I am up this early BY CHOICE because I just can't sleep. Yesterday I spent most of the day lying on the couch with the worst backache I have had in my life. At one point I thought I may be in labour - and you'd think since I have done this twice already I'd know if I was or not, but honestly, I didn't. It was so different. One huge backache that lasted all day. And from what my friends have told me, that can be what back labour is like. Oh joy.

Right now, no backache - so that is a good sign. Now I just need to figure out what I am going to do for the next couple of hours before the house wakes up. I could mark exams, but ick, I don't feel like it. I am reading a great book with only a couple of chapters left, but I hate finishing great books because then I have to find a new one to read and I don't have any around that I can start. I guess I'll just have to find a movie to watch, and enjoy this "me" time because I know that within the next couple of weeks there will be none of that left!