April 2010 – xangelle.com

Schooling / Homeschooling / Unschooling

We have been struggling immensely with Jeremy and need to make some fairly important decisions regarding educating him next year.

I’d like to ask a few questions and I’d love to get some feedback.

1. How were you educated? (K – grade 12)

2. What do you feel was the most important thing you learned from school?

3. Is there something(s) that you feel that can’t be taught outside of the “traditional education system”?

4. Did you struggle with any learning disability type issues? (Dyslexia, ADD, ADHD, any other LD, etc.)

5. How did you feel that your school experience helped or hindered you?

6. What academic and social skills (that you learned in school) do you use every (or mostly) every day or even regularly, for that matter?

These are just some of the many questions that I have regarding school. I’d love to hear your thoughts and I’ll talk a bit more about what we are thinking about regarding Jeremy soon.

31 weeks – Just a Little Late

I’m technically 31 weeks and 3 days, but who really cares, right?

I meant to post on Friday and then ran outta time. Planned to do a post on Saturday….same thing…..CRAZY BUSY and then Sunday just blew past and well, I coulda pounded something out last night, BUT I figured that I was having my appointment with the specialist this morning and so….I could post after that and update if there was anything new or exciting.

We went to Surrey Memorial Hospital for 10:30am and the traffic was NON-EXISTENT so we got their about 20 minutes early. We had to take Siah with us as I couldn’t find a sitter for him. When we walked in the front door, we were greeted with a measles outbreak sign and boy was I ever glad that Siah is done with that. We killed some time and while I was in the washroom before our appt, Jon and Siah got into the Hospital Supplies. I came out to see this……

Jon took the picture with his phone ‘hence the cruddy quality. Nice Red Eye’s, eh?

Our sweet little boy (who is still VERY much a boy) is growing amazingly and with the 3 appts that we’ve had with them – his growth plots on the charts perfectly. I found out that I have an anterior placenta and that would explain why I feel the stronger kicks where I do. I would be feeling them on the edges of where the placenta ends….that was very interesting to me. I’ve wondered where my placenta was – for no other reason than curiosity.

The Dr measured me and our little man at 32 weeks and 6 days and his weight at about 4 pounds 11 ounces.

It was good to hear that everything looks fabulous and……..

I am officially released from seeing the specialist. YAH! I’m excited about that while at the same time it does feel like a (totally unnecessary) safety net has been moved out from under me. If there is nothing wrong with my little man or with me then I “know” that there is no reason to continue to see him, but there was something reassuring about having him as a care provider. He did say that if for any reason over the next few weeks that something felt wrong or off that I should call and they’d get me in right away. This is one of those times where I’m hoping and planning to not have to call him or to see him again.

I did have an appointment scheduled with my midwife for this afternoon, BUT….when we got home, I found a msg on our phone that she’d been called into another birth and so we have to schedule another appt. I’m waiting to hear back from the office about when that will be.

Physically, this week – I’m feeling pretty good. I’m sleeping well…once I get to sleep, but I’m finding it difficult to “get” to sleep at night. My hip is still bothering me quite a bit, and I’m barfing a bit more in the morning’s now. I basically get outta bed. Take my cup of water to the bathroom with me. Drink the cup of water and then throw it all up. After my stomach calms down I have about half an hour to get some food in my system or we’ll hit another round of barfing. It’s a race in the morning to get dressed and ready for the day before Round 2 hits. It’s like a game and really who doesn’t like to race against the clock first thing in the morning when the loser ends up dry heaving for 10 minutes. Incentive is a powerful thing, people.

Aside from those little things which are more annoyances than anything else, I’m not swelling or having heartburn or feeling too exhausted or dealing with any of the other “normal” third trimester issues.

Little man has the hiccups ALL the time and seems to move quite a bit.

I’m SO looking forward to meeting him and wish there was someway to wish the time away so that we could be full term already. I have so much love in me for this little one and I can’t wait to cuddle and snuggle and hold him.

Reality Bites or does it???

I woke up yesterday morning COMPLETELY DISORIENTED.

I had no idea what day it was or what was I was supposed to be doing that day.

It took me a while to process through that I didn’t think it was Saturday or Sunday, but I wasn’t totally certain. I wondered if it was Thursday or Friday……but that just didn’t feel right. I finally figured out that I needed to get up and get ready for work and yet at that point, I still wasn’t sure what day we were at and I was getting more and more concerned at how “out of it” I was.

When I think back now, I had a great day on Monday and yet……..I couldn’t believe that when I woke up I was so unclear on my day’s and even worse, I couldn’t remember conversations that I had with Jon the night before. (I did remember them after being prompted, just not right away.)

I’m still not sure what the deal was – I do know that continuing on (at work) I had a bit of rough morning, feeling spacey and not “on the ball” like I usually am.

I’m taking this as a sign that I do need to slow things down. As much as I’d like to believe…..I’m not a superwoman and I really can’t do everything. REALITY BITES, eh?

Even without this little “moment” I’ve been doing a lot of thinking…..contemplative thinking, if you will.

I’m headed back into some an intense “Mothering Role” time and it’s got me thinking about all the things that I will be gaining and on the flip side of that all the things I’ll be losing.

Having a 13 year old daughter (that I adore) puts some of this into perspective, but there is still the excitement mixed with the feeling or sense of loss.

See, I’ve (for the most part) LOVED working for the past year and 4 months and in a few short weeks all of the sense of accomplishment and gratification of seeing things come together (in the work environment) to work and flow smoothly will be gone.

At that point, I focus a majority of my energy and attention more on raising my infant, 2 year old, 9 yr old, 11 yr old and 13 yr old. (Wow, that sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it?)

While the raising of the children could be considered the noblest of jobs, I will be the first to admit that
it can take a while to “see” your efforts pay off and that delayed sense of accomplishment can be really discouraging. I look back now at the years spent investing in Angelica, Xandra, and Jeremy and I can see glimpses of the teenagers/adults they will become. I can see some of their strengths and some of their weaknesses and I look forward to the process of building deeper relationship with them where I can help to influence who they become and hopefully release them off into the world fully equipped with the skills needed to be amazing successful adults and contributing members of society. And yet……it’s a process and it takes YEARS. It’s not the same as looking back at your work week and seeing what you’ve managed to do and finish. And…..to be honest, there are time when that is so, SO gratifying.

I’m thrilled that I have the perspective of the past 13 years to look back on and to know that my efforts do pay off and to also know that this is a season and that I can relax and enjoy this time and not resent the days or times when it “feels” like I’ve accomplished nothing important.

I’m looking forward to my house being cleaner (that’s one thing that suffers some when I’m working), to meals being ready more on time, to being at home when the older 3 are finished school, to baking more, to being on top of laundry and grocery shopping, but mostly, I’m looking forward to spending more time with my kids.

This is the thing that excites me the most about this time.

I love my children and I enjoy the time that I spend with them. Okay, there are times when I just wanna send them away, but I choose to look at it as fostering a sense of independence, right??? (You can put a positive spin on almost anything if you try hard enough.) No, it’s not all a giant bed of roses, but I have this opportunity to focus on my job as a Mother and as much as I do feel a sense of loss regarding my status as a member of the “workforce”; I’m also so excited to be able to get back into a rhythm or groove with my kids and my home.

It’s going to take some time and I can see a definite adjustment period as we all learn to work with and around another personality joining us, but it’s going to be good, right?

Delicious Summer Evenings

I’m sitting up in my bedroom and my ceiling fan is on and it’s SO warm and the air is still and quiet and it’s…….heavenly.

I long for summer evenings like this. I know it’s not technically summer, but there is something about the warmth and the sun that makes things seem all better.

We came home this afternoon and I sat out in the sun for just over half an hour and I felt totally recharged. Well, as much as someone who is 30 weeks pregnant can feel energized and/or recharged.

We came inside and managed to re-arrange the TV Room to include some office space. Opening up the TV Room to accommodate some office stuff meant that we could clear out some of the stuff that we’ve been storing in our bedroom, thereby freeing up space that we need for the baby and more specifically the baby furniture.

In the process, I also managed to clear about 5 things off my “To Do List”.

I’ve got about 5 pages of “Things to do” (it’s double spaced, so it’s not like it’s a million things) and last night Jon and I sat down and put a time frame or time limit to each of the items. We are aiming to get the “important” things finished by the beginning of June and then there are some things that I’d like to get done but that aren’t critical and I can finish those during June as I’m counting down the days. There is nothing worse than just sitting around with NOTHING to do just waiting for the baby to come. I’ve done that and it SUCKS!

Well, time to put my boys to bed. Oh and By the way, I’ve loved hearing your movie favorites….if you haven’t shared, there is still time to chime in with your two cents.

ps. I love light movies like Sweet Home Alabama and Failure to Launch. I also LOVE action movies like FaceOff and the Transporter, and I even love the M. Night Shyalaman movies. I think that my least favorite movies are science fiction type movies. But, it all depends on my mood at any particular time as to which movie I choose to watch and re-watch.

30 Weeks

I’m 30 weeks and creeping closer and closer to the finish line.

I’m starting to feel a bit more awkward and am noticing my gut starting to get in the way which shouldn’t be a massive surprise for 30 weeks pregnant. I’ve just not really noticed my belly “getting in the way” before now, aside from the fact that I can’t sleep on my stomach and haven’t been able to since about 20 weeks pregnant.

I had my mid wife appt on Thursday and am now into the “every 2 week” appointments. I gained a little more (5 lbs in 3 weeks) than I was happy with and I’m totally blaming that on Easter and the extra chocolate that I consumed. My blood pressure is perfect and our sweet boy’s heart rate was sitting at 144 bpm. Everything else looked good and we’re just continuing on. I have my next appt on April 26th which is also when I have my next specialist’s appointment….it will be a busy day.

I did just recently go to my chiropractor as I’ve been having quite a bit of pain in my left hip and it was referring to my right knee….how fun is that? The worst part is the fact that at this point, he can put me back into place, but I’m pretty much guaranteed that it’ll pop right back out. The Relaxin (it doesn’t just affect the one area, it’s an equal opportunity hormone – so much fun, eh?) is at play and there’s not much I can do about that but to just ride the rest of this pregnancy out. BUT…….If that’s my biggest complaint….then I’m really not doing too badly physically, am I?

So, Physically I’m doing pretty good, but Emotionally or Mentally is a whole ‘nuther ball game….and seeing as we’re just about to head out grocery shopping I’m not really going to get into it right now.

I’m okay (don’t worry) I just need to make some decisions (possibly set some boundaries) and well, that’s always so much fun isn’t it?

So, in the mean time….one of my favorite ways to avoid dealing with things is to watch movies (while I’m crafting)…..so, What is your favorite movie and why?

Little Bits and Pieces

This whole ’bout with Measles is completely over and done with except for a few little bits and pieces……

….of dried, dead skin shedding on Siah’s litte tiny fingers.

He’s spent a considerable time in this position over the past 2 weeks, picking at little pieces as he notices or sees or is bothered by them.

The very first symptom that we noticed on Siah was a rash on his hands….it seems that his hands were hit the absolute hardest out of all of this.

I did read that there could be some skin that shedded as a result of the rash associated with measles, and saw some pics on-line of these little kids with the skin on their torso’s peeling off and so I wasn’t completely shocked when his hands started peeling. The only other thing was that the skin on his torso felt like sand paper and so I do know that the rash basically burnt the layer of skin off. Not that it actually burnt it, but the rash destroyed the top layer of skin enough so that it needed to peel or rub off. We have been slathering cream on him, not in an attempt to “save the skin” but to ease any discomfort their might be as a result of dry skin.

His little hands have looked so cute and the look on his face has been so focused that I wanted to try and catch a picture of him……I got the hands, but try as I might (and I tried more than a few times) I could not capture the face….he just kept moving too quickly once I got my camera out.

I love grubby little boy hands.

The Finished Crib Set

Well, after a lot of cutting and piecing and sewing and stitch ripping and a few quick “on the fly” adjustments because I miscalculated………the crib set is COMPLETED.

I sewed the very last piece of thread on the drive home from church on Sunday and I have to admit….it felt pretty good.

I actually made a crib sheet (still need to make one more), bumper pads and a quilt all without an official pattern and I think that it looks pretty good, if I do say so myself.

I guess that biggest thing is that I actually like it. I do see things that I could have done differently or if I were doing again, that I’d do better, but for my first ever attempt at anything like this….I’m pretty proud of what I’ve accomplished.

I wrote a few different patterns for the quilt and finally settled on one that I figured that I liked. it wasn’t too busy and I didn’t figure that it’d be too difficult to cut and piece and actually “do”.

I cut out all the pieces of fabric based on the sizes that I had calculated in my pattern and tried to figure out at the same time where they were all going, based on how much of the fabric I had and what looked the best sitting next to each other.

Here is my attempt to puzzle all the pieces together before attempting to sew them….

Once I actually started to sew the pieces together I realized that I had miscalculated by 4 inches…..that’s a pretty big miscalculation AND…..I didn’t have enough fabric left over to re-cut the pieces that I had messed up on and so…then I had to figure out how I was going to “fix” it and continue on.

Here is the finished top piece and you can see where I had to add additional 2 inch pieces in on the 3rd and 4th lengths and in order to make the quilt look “intentional” I also then had to reduce 2 of the outside panels that I had NOT miscalculated on…oh the joy…..oh the fun!

I then stopped working on the quilt and started working on the bumper pads. I was initially going to just make them completely out of the dark paw print material, (I bought 2 meters of the yellow dot, and 2 meters of the dark brown and a fat quarter of each of the other prints. I could have just gone and bought some more, BUT…it was almost like a challenge to try to use up the remaining fabric that I had left over and still come up with something that I liked while not HAVING to buy any more fabric……..and aside from wanting to buy one more meter of the yellow dot to make another crib sheet – I have been able to do exactly that.) I didn’t have enough fabric to go ahead and do that, but I could piece some pieces together and hopefully make it work.

I’ll admit, that I created WAY MORE work for myself than was necessary but I was able to puzzle enough pieces together without them looking completely ridiculous and I didn’t have to buy any more fabric (for this project) AND…….even better…..The bumper pads fit PERFECTLY!

Here is a side view and we are still going to paint the crib and to figure out a way to tie the end ties onto the head and foot boards to keep them from falling down….

Here is Jon holding up the completed quilt…

and here is a partial view of the back side of the quilt……

My mom came and helped me to “quilt” the blanket and we used our little man’s name and also put 3 stars in the 2 opposing corners……It looks AMAZING, but you’ll have to wait until the big day to find out what our little man’s name is going to be….

There are a few extra pictures in the set that you can check out if you so desire.

I’m just happy that it all worked out and that it’s ONE MORE THING that I can cross off my list.

Not Quite a Month Of Meals

I sat down yesterday and planned out the rest of the months worth of meals.

It wasn’t intentional, but once I did the next 2 weeks, I realized that there were only 4 more days left unplanned in the month and they were looking a little lonely and so I just chose 4 more meals, threw them in there and TA DA! I don’t have to think about meal planning until May! Yah! That’s one less thing in my brain that’s rattling around taking up space and energy.

This last week of meals got shifted around a bit, but that’s one of the nice things about meal planning is that based on time or necessity, you can be flexible with your meal plans and move or change things up a bit, BUT….if you need to, you can just stick with the already laid out plan and not have to do ANY thinking.

I had a bit of a harder time coming up with these next couple of weeks of meals, and I think that has more to do with me feeling a bit tired, but I’m also feeling a bit icky and that doesn’t exactly lead to WANTING to eat and plan meals.

We need to pick up a few things from the store to make this week work, and also to stock up on kids lunch type thingys. But I do have all we’ll need for meat and so this weeks shop should be not too expensive.

Here are the plans for this weeks menu:

Monday: Bar-B-Qued Steak & Potatoes and veggies (We had homemade soup on Sat as it was quick and easy)
Tuesday: Veggie Stirfry with Pecans over rice
Wednesday: Roast Chicken, Potatoes, and Veggies
Thursday: Almond Chicken with Rice
Friday: Nacho’s
Saturday: Spaghetti & Salad with Garlic bread
Sunday: Lunch out with Family & Friends
Monday: Fish & Rice with Veggies

This is quite a busy (schedule wise) week and so I’m hoping that everything works out well this week.

As always, I continue to look for new recipe’s that are quick and easy to make, so let me know if you have any family favorites.

Sunshine for the Soul & the Baby Booties Giveaway

First I just want to say, a HUGE Thank you to you all who have commented and twittered recently. I appreciate the nice comments that you’ve made and it really made my day(s). You all rock!

I managed to get outside and sit in the sun this morning and it felt so amazing. I had to go inside eventually because my vampire like pale skin felt like it might burn and while I welcome a little color….red is not the color I have in mind. I gotta find me some sunscreen quickly. I felt like the sun was warming right into soul. What an amazing feeling!

I sat out there with my notebook, my personal calendar, my work calendar and scheduled out a bunch of stuff and managed to also fill in the rest of the months meal plans. That’s one thing that’s off my list of “things to do”. I tried to sit down with the kids this weekend, but…it didn’t work out. I did, however, get a bunch of other things planned, listed and on or off the “to-do” list and so on top of the soul warming experience – I also feel like I accomplished something. What a great feeling!

In a highly scientific manner, I chose 4 pieces of paper and wrote the names of the 4 baby bootie entries. I folded them identically and in such a way that we couldn’t tell, which was which and then I had Jon pick one. Normally I’d do a short video documenting the whole process so that you’d see just how I tried to make it all perfectly fair, but this time…you’re just gonna have to take my word for it. I’m too tired these days to fiddle with making a video and uploading it – You’re just all lucky that I remembered to actually do the giveaway today.

Anyway…….without further ado……..

The winner of her choice of booties is…………Lise!

Send me your address or gimme a call and I’ll either mail the booties to you or we can make a plan to get together. (My vote is for the latter – if it works out for you.)

A Big Thanks to Debbie, Courtney and Cara for playing along. You guys rock!

29 Weeks

I am 29 weeks pregnant.

I remember the beginning weeks and how stressful and emotionally unstable they were and now here I have 11 weeks left until I reach full term.

This has been a really long pregnancy. I’m really looking forward to the day that I finally get to hold my little man and begin that portion of the journey. I’m trying to really enjoy every moment that I have left, but at the same time…I’m really looking forward to not ever being pregnant again.

I say that now, but watch me be all sad and upset in a while.

I’m feeling very emotional these days. I’m feeling emotionally fragile and like I want to retreat into a protective safe zone and just ride out the remaining weeks.

I’m finding it hard to do things that I normally don’t have issues with and the things that I normally struggle with – feel completely overwhelming to me. I hate it.

I’m unsure why I’m feeling like this, and I’m even more unsure what to do with myself.

And so…….I try to continue to put one foot in front of the other and I go to my exercise class and I plan my meals and I attempt to cross things off my list and well…..I’m just trying to make it through on a day by day basis.

I desperately need to book an appointment with my chiropractor as my left hip is hurting something fierce. Other than that, physically I’m feeling pretty amazing. I am heading into the last weeks and am feeling a lot more sick and hurling more than I had been (YUCK!) but I’m feeling feeling pretty mobile and typically have the energy to make it through the day without feeling like I’m dying.

The roughest thing right now is just the whole emotional/nasty/feeling like jello or whatever……..but, this too will pass – won’t it?

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