Category: Kids

A Lovely Day……in photos

We had an amazing day yesterday.

We wanted to spend some time together as a family and well……everyone needs to eat, and I figured that we could plan a fun lunch to have with the kids and to make it a fun and memorable time for all.

The kids love it when we have a “fancy” meal and so we decided to set up the dining room table and have a party. Jon and I threw a few ideas around and decided to make pizza for lunch.

We figured that we could make heart shaped pizza shells….

Heart Shaped Pizza

We also cut up heart shaped pieces of ham and red peppers.

Pepper's

I set up plates of strawberries, raspberries, tomatoes and watermelon balls to snack on.

Strawberries

The kids thought the table looked so fun. In reality it looked a bit like Valentine’s had thrown up all over the table. Hearts, and red and white overload…….

The kids, hyped up on sugar, brought their larger than life personalities to the table….

Jer

Siah

Geli forced this smile on but in between having a MASSIVE sugar low and having stayed up past midnight babysitting the night before……well, she was a joy to have around. We eventually sent her to bed for an afternoon nap – which miraculously worked wonders for her attitude and disposition. It’s amazing what a little sleep can do, eh?

Geli

Jon……….

Jon

……………got me some flowers and a card. While I think roses are lovely…..I LOVE tulips.

My Tulips

Aren’t they beautiful?

For once, we remembered to actually take a picture of me…..thereby proving that I actually was here.

Me

And not to be left out, here is my sweet girl, Xandra……..

Xani

We laughed and talked and laughed some more. I love when we do things like this because the kids bring these times up later and I love helping to create these special memories for the kids.

Did you do anything special or fun for Valentine’s Day?

Too Fast, Too Much, Too Little, Too Late

I can hardly believe that SIah is almost two years old.

I know that I just did an update post about him, but it’s really hitting hard that my baby is moving on from becoming a baby and that he’s becoming a little boy.

I have nursed him to sleep forever. Yes, I nurse him to sleep and you know what……I do it gladly…well, mostly gladly. And I’m not even really that much upset that it means that I’ve had absolutely NO LIFE for the past almost two years.

I chose to do this. I didn’t have to. I wanted to.

All the “things” that they tell you to do with your kids…I have tried it all. I nursed them. I bottle fed them. I formula fed them. I swaddled them to sleep. I put them to sleep on their backs and on their sides and on their tummy’s and I let them cry it out and I bounced them and rocked them and sang to them…pretty much if its out there….I’ve done it.

I wasn’t trying to create little schizophrenic little babies and so I didn’t do this to one kid all at the same time. It just seemed that for each kid the “experts” recommended something different. I guess that’s what happens when you have kids over a 10 – 12 year span.

But with Siah, I wanted to slow life down and to take the time to really enjoy him. I wanted to cherish every last minute that I could.

Before I just couldn’t slow my life down. I “fit” the babies into my life and now I regret it. I couldn’t wait for them to grow up. I was always pushing and encouraging them to reach the next milestone beacause it meant that I was one step closer to freedom. I was one step closer to getting “my life” back. I was so selfish and immature back then. I wish I could go back in time and have a chat with myself and tell myself that this time with them was so short, that once it was gone – I could never get it back; and that I would regret not just enjoying them where they were at.

Now I know how fast they grow up. I did not know to take advantage of the fact that one child is so easy and that you could “try” to nap or at least rest when they slept because if/when you had a second one…..ya, that possibility is not even anywhere close to being a reality. Now I know that the crazy first year of life is one to hold onto and enjoy…even the cruddy lack of sleep times and the crying times and the all the horrible times……it’s such a short amount of time and when they are 7 or 10 or older – you realize that the time has flown by and you wonder how it happened that you got from there to here.

I don’t believe that this means that you can’t whine about how tough it is….it is tough. MOTHERHOOD IS TOUGH….but try to enjoy every minute that you can, recognizing that it goes all too fast. Now I realize that all those things that I thought were so important – were not; and the times that I resented my tiny little one for getting in the way of “my life”…….well, I can never get back that time, but those opportunities that pop up….well typically a better one comes up later down the road and now I know that “this time” is the most important thing to me.

I chose to take extra time with Siah and now I’m finding that our time and our routines and our schedules are evolving to accommodate a little boy instead of a little baby. We still nurse but even that is changing. He used to fall asleep when he nursed and now, more often than not, he is still awake when he’s done. And Jon’s been putting him to sleep….which is another step of him growing up and moving on. He’s not needing me for everything. I’m getting to adjust to not being his “everything”. It’s another adjustment and yet like all the rest of “this growing up” and transitioning from one phase to another…..I am determined to enjoy it.

I want to be able to enjoy all of the different phases of all of my kid lives. Sometimes it is easier to enjoy the different phases than at other times, but one thing I’m learning is that “this time (the present)” is so fleeting and that once it passes I can never get it back.

I want to live my life so that I have no regrets or at least as little regrets as possible. This requires that I take time to figure out what’s really important to me and what things just aren’t as important. It also requires that I spend time talking to and gleaning information from those who are further down this road of life and who have been where I am at. I can learn from their experiences, from their mistakes and from their successes. Then I can make the best choices for me and for my family. Years from now I will look at my family and see the investment of my time and love and effort and I will never regret that.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

No, I’m not actually going to talk about hair or shampoo or anything like that, but really what was running through my mind was the stupid whine that seems to be on a looping track these days.

I’m so tired. We’re running around crazy busy. I never seem to have time or energy to do things that I like to do. We are commuting too many hours in a week. When will we buy a place in the BIG CITY? Will we actually be able to get a place in the BIG CITY? Whine! Whine! Whine! Moan! Moan! Moan! Snivel! Snivel! Snivel! and all that crap….

It seems to be all I’m saying these days, and I’m thinking that you have got to be at the very least as sick of hearing about it, as I am sick of whining about it.

And so….I’m gonna talk about something else.

I wanna talk about LOVE! Yup, Love.

See, I’ve been mulling a whole concept of “Unconditional Love” over and over and over in my brain….about as much as I’ve been whining about it, and so you know it’s quite a bit.

The concept of loving unconditionally in your life takes a RADICAL SHIFT of thinking….at least it does in mine.

Especially in the area of parenting.

You see, Since we became parents……12-13 years ago – we’ve done this sllllliiiiiide from one type of parenting to this whole completely different kind of parenting.

Before we were all about control. Control your children so that you can train them properly and then you’ll have good kids. Yell at them when they get outta line, spank them (it’s how we were raised), if they disobey, make sure that the punishment is so severe that they never want to even contemplate doing that thing again. And make sure that they know who is the boss….if they don’t respect you as being in control, then you’ve lost all hope of ever having a good kid…..

There was a lot of fear that we might “mess up” and somehow our kids would be wrecked or ruined and then it would all be our fault and we’d be these horrible bad parents and “Woe is us! We wrecked our kids! There is no hope for us or them!”

I know that’s a bit of an overkill reaction, but it’s kinda what we felt like.

Slowly……OH. SO. SLOWLY……there were aspects of that type of thinking that just didn’t sit well with us and we started to institute slow, tiny, itty-bitty, baby steps of changes. I think the first change was that we decided to not spank our kids any more. Not that we don’t believe that there shouldn’t be consistent discipline or that there shouldn’t be consequences for choices made, both positive and negative…..but we just didn’t see that “we” could justify “hitting” our children in anger or love or really for any reason. I never wanted to see the kids flinch when we raised our hands to them. We don’t want to see them shrink into a shell of themselves when a voice is raised at them. We don’t want their concept of us to be an angry, yelling, hurtful parent who is disappointed when they mess up and is only happy and approving when they “get it right”. We don’t want their concept to be that if they are “good” then we are happy and accepting; and if they are “bad” then we reject them until they “get it all together”.

We want to love our children and to be a safe place for them to grow and develop and to stretch their “wings”. We want them to RUN TO US not only when things are good, but especially when things are bad. We want for their concept of us to be that we love and accept them for WHO they are and not for what they DO. They can’t win or lose our love. Our love is UNCONDITIONAL…..is it FOREVER. We love them because they are our children. We just love them.

When we love unconditionally, we just accept that there are hard times and better times. There are things that they need to learn, and what better place to learn those things than within the boundaries of our love.

The whole unconditional love concept doesn’t mean that I just let my kids run wild and do whatever they want, and I just say….well, my love will make up for all the rude destructive behaviour and one day they’ll grow up to be productive successful contributing members of society. Nope! I’m still responsible to train these little ones. I’m more responsible the younger they area and as they grow older, my responsibilty for them lessens until they are confidently standing on their own and then I’m just their if they need me and ask for my help or advice.

But for now….they can learn through choices and consequences. Life is made up of choices and consequences and just about everything that we do in life is either a choice or a consequence. I can choose to speed, but I have to accept that if I speed, the consequence could be a $150 ticket at the least OR I could kill someone at the worst. Learning to make positive choices, means that I don’t want to kil anyone and so I choose to NOT speed because I don’t even want to deal with that consequence…..

But the whole idea of choices and consequences means that I don’t have to yell anymore….not that i’m not human and sometimes I go further than I can handle and then I get to apologize to my kids for yelling. I mean, if I want them to be respectful to me and to each other, do I not offer them respect as well. Lead by example, right? But take tonight for example…..we’ve talked about not yelling at each other. Talk respectfully. Treat each other the way that you’d want to be treated. But, tonight….that one didn’t go over so well.

The kids were helping to tidy the house and Xandra and Jeremy started to get a little frustrated at each other and instead of asking us for help with their dilemma or figuring out a way to communicate their needs and wants…it dissolved fairly quickly into Xandra screaming in a fit of rage that she “WASN’T SCREAMING AT YOU?” And so calmly I told them both to go to their rooms and get their jammies on as it was time for them to go to bed.

They dissolved into a sobbing mess, neither wanting to go to their rooms, but both heading their all the while crying about how sorry they were that they were yelling and that they wanted to stay up and help.

I calmly explained that I wasn’t angry, but that the consequence for screaming at each other disrespectfully was that their time helping in the family was over and they could just go to sleep. Xandra handled it a bit better than Jeremy and got her jammies on and piled into bed. Jeremy was a bit more upset and that’s normal as his brain doesn’t always grasp the situation quite the same way as the girls due to his own personal sturggles.

Just because he struggles doesn’t mean that he gets away with it. He still has to deal with the consequences that his choices bring to him. That’s life…that’s what life brings…that’s what he will have to deal with for the rest of his life. It’s better that the learn that now, where it’s safe within our love as opposed to learning it when he steps out on his own…..that would not be loving of us to just “set him loose to figure it out on his own”, would it?

And so, I went back to their rooms, and hugged them and explained how the situation could have gone differently. There are several different scenarios that they could have chosen, but their choice was to try and control the situation by force. In effect, they were beating each other with their words and their volume….not cool! They did “get it” and they went to bed. In case you were wondering, it was 7:30pm and by the time all was said and done and their lights were turned out it was 8pm, so it’s not like I sent them to bed at 5pm…

But the big thing….once upon a time….I would have yelled….and possibly screamed at them to exert my control and force over the situation. I would have used my words and volume to try and force them to do what I wanted. They have learned from me, and it’s going to take time to help them “un-learn” that way of dealing with situations. Fortunately, I have that time and I’m willing to take the time to help them learn new ways of dealing with different situations that come up.

My kids are still expected to be respectful of people and things. They are not allowed to just run wild. BUT…….I want them to know that above all else, they are loved and that they are loved because they are my children, and not because they are “doing” it right. I believe in them. I want the best for them. I will be cheering them on ans they make great decisions, and I will be here with open arms when they make choices that negatively affect them or those around them. I WILL LOVE THEM UNCONDITIONALLY!

One or the Other

So, we had Geli’s 12 Year Sleep Over Birthday Party last night. I was a bit apprehensive as she had initially invited 10 girls and last we had heard 6-8 were going to show up. I was expecting CHAOS and NOISE to rule in our house last night.

Instead, 3 little girls showed up and only one was “allowed” to sleep over as the other had to be at a family function early the next morning and the other little girl had been grounded. So, Geli and her friend were in bed and asleep by midnight and then woke up at 6:30am.

Jon and I have been geeking out and setting up our new 13 inch Macbook Pros. He’s geeking and I’m just along for the ride….right?

We went to bed shortly after midnight and it was then, that all the fun started.

Jeremy came crying and stumbling into our room, moaning that he was barfing. He vomited on the carpet, on the bathroom floor and then finally made it to the sink where he continued along his merry barfing ways. In between heaves, he managed to inform us that he had also christened the main bathroom sink as well.

OH JOY!!!!!

I hate barf. With everything in me…..I would rather wash the toilet than deal with barf, and if you know me at all – you will know that the germaphobe in me despises the toilet and all it’s germ infested bits. So, seeing as Jon was dealing with the “bulk” of the mess in our room – I headed to the main bathroom to clean out the sink. Serious nastiness as I had to scoop the crap out with my hands……and well….I’ll just stop there. It was awful.

We got everything cleaned up – it took a while – and got Jerermy back in his own bed. I really didn’t want him in mine if he was going to barf again, and I was sure that he was going to have another go at it all. I was wired at this point and sent a quick text off to twitter about it all….I was seriously awake. I lay in bed for a while and then Siah woke up……he nursed and nursed and nursed and all the while popping off and on as…..he has a runny nose and can’t breathe. OH SO MUCH FUN!!!!

After who knows how long, Jon finally took him to try and settle him down and well….lets just say that it didn’t go over too well. Then Jeremy woke up again with more barf and then Siah woke up again, and between the two of them they tag teamed the night away.

The most amazing part is that they were both actually asleep from about 6:30am until 8am. That was SOOOOO nice. Who’da ever thought that I’d be grateful for an hour and a half of sleep, eh?

And then….when we finally crawled our tired bodies outta bed – we realized that we had NO COFFEE. Isn’t that horrid? We did find enough for one cup of coffee each in the back of the freezer, but Jon had to make a quick Starbucks run….mmmmmm, Heavenly!

We were supposed to go and have a nice family brunch with my family today and I was really looking forward o being together with everyone, but didn’t feel that it was fair to take my sick kid and expose everyone else to his germy goodness. So, we stayed at home.

This was both a HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT and a MAJOR BLESSING.

I really wanted to see my family, and we’ve been crazy busy. The forced down day today has been awesome. We just stayed in our jammies ALL DAY LONG. We’ve done absolutely nothing today. Watched a little hockey. Played on some computers. Fed the kids. And now, Jon is making dinner and then we are sending them all to bed.

I’m hoping that no one is sick tonight. I need a few straight hours of sleep. Mmmmmmmm, SLEEEEEEEEEP!

Mismash

So, I got a few things that I could talk about and really I have NO idea where to start.

I had really high hopes that I might be able to post everyday this month, and here we are only a week in and I’ve already blown it.

It’s okay! I’m not too upset. I’ll get over it. It’s not really that big of a deal, and I’m not really sure why I’m so fixated on trying o accomlish this…..*shrugs*

I’ve put some pictures up over in Flickr….one Saturday we went to Graville Island. It’s always so much fun. You can click on the picture to see the whole set.

Kisses

This particular picture is of Jeremy kissing Aunty Amy. Amy is Jonathan’s psuedo adopted sister. We love her dearly and she’s getting married in ONE MONTH. SOOOOOOOOO EXCITING!

We had a great afternoon hanging out with family and checking out the little shops and taking pictures. It was a great day.

You can also check out this set of pictures that I took on that most fabulous sunny day. The kids were DESPERATE to play outside in the sun and they wanted to play on the slip ‘n slide. Again, just click on the picture to click through to see the whole set.

Siah & the Hose

I’ve already gone on and on about the sun and sadly…there isno sun out today and that SUCKS!

Add into the mix that Jon and I are supposed to be going on our “lunch date” today, but he is barfing because he ate some samosas that I told him to not eat because I thought they would have gone bad and he “pooh poohed” me and well…..he’s barfing. So, that wrecks my day. Thanks so much, darling.

You can also check out the pics over here on Chris’s side of the world and well….if you were feeling so inclined or helpful or whatever…….you could help us out….Think about it? Huh. Huh. Please?!?

I’ve got to get ready for Geli’s 12 birthday party – a sleepover with a few of her school friends…..AAAAAAAAKKKKKK!

And actually, Geli has been practising for MONTHS for a musical that she’s in.

Her school is putting on BEAUTY and The Beast and we went and saw it last night. She did such a good job – she’s a knife – and I loved watching her be apart of something as BIG and FUN as this. It was an absolute blast. She had 13 people from our family out to watch her last night and tonight another 8 are going. She feels special and I hope that tonight goes really REALLY well.
Here are two pics of her in her maid costume after the spell has been broken and they are all “Human Again!” They are crappy pics because I dind’t have my camera – only my phone….

Geli the Maid

Geli in her costume

I do have a few things that I have to do today and so I can’t hang around here all day – much as I’d like to just chill and relax. Duty calls.

So, happy clicking!

The Birds are Singing! The Sun is Shining; the Bunny’s are Hopping and the Unicorn….Well, He just Farted!

The kids have gone back to school today – GLORY HALLELUJAH!

I mean, I love ’em and all, but I also like to have at least one moment when no one is asking me for “something”….”anything”.

Mind you, Siah is still not 100% and he is still whining and whining and whining and whining.

I hate that whole….. “I’m sorta sick, but not really and actually, I’m just practising for when I’m all grown up and have a “man cold“. Yah, he’s starting young, this one is…..

I would probably be a bit more sympathetic had I been able to sleep a bit more over the past 3 nights, but sleep….sleep is for wimps. Who needs sleep when you can stay up all night cuddling a sick, coughing, crying baby who only taunts you with the possibility of sleep? Who? Not me, I tell you.

Anyway, I have this impossible notion that I’m going to accomplish all sorts of things today. Would you like to hear my list….I guess technically you’d read my list, but that is splitting hairs and the fact that I’m even coherent enough to be making any sort of a list……..delusional or otherwise – is pretty amazing as far as I’m concerned.

So, in a perfect an okay a decent world, I will:

– take a shower and get dressed (these two go hand in hand because if I only take a shower and don’t manage to get dressed, well…..that’s almost a step backward as far as I’m concerned because even though right now I’m in my pyjamas and I stink…I could at least answer the door. Right???)

Showered, dressed and even did my hair…no makeup though….oh, but I did wax the ol’stach off….was getting a bit manly for my liking….just keeping it real…..

– tidy the house (I’m not even talking about deep cleaning – just scraping the mountains of toys and clothes back into each childs room)

Not as much done here as I’d like….I still have time left in the day, though…..right?

– plan AND make dinner (we need to eat and I’m not thinking that the kids will be happy with a handful of vitamins)

Starting dinner in 20 mins…..chicken stirfry…mmmmmmmmm!

– Wash AND dry some laundry (Those darn kids think that “clean your room” means throw everything on the floor down to the laundry room…then it’s clean, eh?)

Only one load washed and dried (I still have time….) and 4 loads folded but not yet put away.

The pipe dream list includes Siah actually laying down and going to sleep for an afternoon nap for even just one hour…..but seeing as he’s woken up the moment that I’ve so much as breathed the thought of putting him in his bed….I’m not really holding out too much hope for that one.

He slept for 35 mins…..not an hour, but about 30 mins longer than he has in the past few days……beggar’s can’t e choosers, eh?

Now, the little monkey is on top of my work table trying out my new necklaces….so, I gotta go and rescue them him.

The Family That Eats Together…..

I had planned our weekly menu for the week and tonight we were going to have stuffed potatoes…..kind of a twist on Taco’s….Baked Potatoes – topped with ground beef and lettuce and tomatoes, and cheese, sour cream and salsa……Mmmmm Mmmmm Delicious!

We picked the kids up from school and came home and I was farting around on the Internet and read this post at Balancing Everything. It sounded like so much fun, and I figured that my kids would love to make some potstickers. I found this recipe and figured that I could adapt it slightly and we’d be golden.

We used Kamut Flour instead of regular flour and aside from that – we pretty much followed the recipe.

Jeremy wasn’t too excited about all of this. He pretty much hates anything new. I had high hopes that he’d help with cutting and grating the veggies and that somehow the actual involvement would mean that he would love this meal. Ya….not so much!

Totally Involved and Engaged

He did help out some, and even ate two of the potstickers, BUT that was only after some serious threatening forcing cajoling encouraging.

Siah helped out by throwing his incredible cuteness around…….

Ahhhhhh

Geli made some of the most amazing potstickers. This photo does absolutely NO justice to how amazing looking her potstickers looked. Even if they were not traditionally looking potstickers…..still – AMAZING!

The Real Deal

After all was said and done, the potstickers tasted amazing. It was an easy – if somewhat involved – meal to make and mostly everybody liked them.

I think that we’ll probably make them again and we might even try pyrogies sometime soon…..maybe Jeremy would like those….then again – probably not!

Click here to see the Potsticker set in all it’s glory.

Oh the Awesomeness!

Seriously Amazing.

I’m sitting here with a towl wrapped around me – red faced, sweating, stinking to high-heaven….I just did 30 minutes on the eliptical machine. It started out with me chanting, “I hate exercise. I hate exercise. I hate exercise.” It’s been kind of my mantra. And somewhere along the line I figured that particular phrase was probably not really motivating me to continue on and so I switched to saying all the positive phrases about why I liked exercising…..which was difficult to to at first without lying…..and then once I figured out that I am happy with what exercise is doing for my body, and what it’s doing for my heart and what it’s doing for my weight….that kind of stuff – then if got marginally easier to figure out positive things to say.

I mamanged to make it all the way through without stopping and then got ready to really enjoy my shower……except that there is no hot water. NONE! and weve not done anything today to use it all up. So, I got to check the water heater aaaaaaaaaaaaand…it was off. Somehow, last night it must have gone out and so now I’m sitting here in my own funk just stewing for the next 20 minutes until I can deal with my bad self.

We have a Professioanl Day today – You should be so lucky. The best part of the day is that the kids have signed onto this card system for chores and it’s working so fabulously. Mind you, they are definately my children and have gotten carried away this morning with the “details” of setting the system up. So far this morning, they’ve spent a ton of time getting ready to do the chores and are only just now starting to get the actual chores done.

BUT….last weekend….the kids cleaned the house and all it’s going to cost me is tickets to a movie for the family. That’s some seriously sweet and cheap maid service for ya.

Question for you – How do YOU motivate your kids to pitch in and help around the house?

Hey! How YOU Doing?

Alright, so it’s been an amazing week of barf, diarrhea, diarrhea, and more diarrhea.

And you, How’ve things been for you?

I bet my week trumps your week, no?

On top of all that “fun-ness”, I reluctantly kept both Xandra and Jeremy home from school as school policy states that “your child should be 24 hours diarrhea-free” before you send their germ-y goodness back to class.

Let me just say that I so appreciate the teachers. Jeremy’s teacher in particular, but Xandra is a whole fun ball of emotional energy in her own special way, as well.

Now, it’s not entirely fair in that I get Jeremy “med-free” and we dope him heavily before we send him off to lay siege on his classroom, to war, to school.

I must explain…..well, actually – I really don’t have to, but I want to….because if me and my situation can in any way help you to understand some child and their parent better or to help you to give just a little extra grace to “that child” in church or at the mall or heck, even in your own family, or even if you just walk away and say “THANK GOD THAT’S NOT ME HAVING TO DEAL WITH ALL THAT” I think I might understand how or why that poor mom looks like hell so frazzled, nope I won’t ask her to bake 4 dozen cookies to bring to the “troop” meeting tomorrow night…..then my work here is done.

At this point, I’m actually just giong to go ahead and see if I can use a world record amount of punctuation marks, quotation marks and such in this post……

I choose to joke and laugh about the situation that we are in, mostly because I like to. I like to find the humor in things and well, in our family, there is a lot of humor to be found.

I can either choose to be angry about what’s going on and get all controlled and then get even more angry when “it” (life) doesn’t fit into my perfect little controlled scheme OOOOOOOOOORRRRR, I can laugh, and just kinda “Flow with it”.

I will honestly admit that I’ve been WAY more of a angry controlled type person for a lot of my life….not that I’ve had tons to be angry about, but the whole cycle of FEAR leading into CONTROL, leading into CHAOS, which makes us ANGRY mostly because we are full of FEAR, which cycles us right back into CONTROL and well….you can see how the cycle keeps on going, eh?

I’ve changed (some) over the past 3-4 years and it’s not been without counselling, but it has definately been for the better and not for the worse.

Okay, Back to my most wonderful son…..

Life with Jeremy is SO MUCH STINKING WORK!

It’s so true. Yesterday, after 2 days of being at home “med-free” I dosed him up. He was absolutely “pinging” off of everything. I had yelled at him lovingly helped him to understand the error of his ways, many, many MANY times, and this was all before 9am. Can you see how the day was shaping up to be a really awesome day?

So I did. I gave him some Ritalin, and even though it took a bit to kick it – yesterday was a pretty pleasant day….sort of. See, there is a HUGE sliding scale of what “pleasant” means. In my world, if nothing gets majorly burnt, irrepairably destroyed, no one gets seriously hurt, and there are no major screaming tear filled melt downs – then I consider it pleasant.

Did you notice all those adjectives in front of those words….yah…that there is the kicker. On a normal day….at that stuff still happens, but if we can “fix” the situation then I consider it to all be succesful.

Man, I’m tired!

I’m sure this post must be winning some award for the longest, worst punctuated, most run on sentances and poor grammer, but really…this is just how it is. Life is messy. My life might be messier than some, and less messier than others. But….this is my life, and I’m okay with it. Tired, but okay.

Okay, so I gave Jeremy some Ritalin….that’s where we were, right, and like I said, the day was okay.

The thing is…..I wonder sometimes…..I wonder what J would be like if he didn’t have ADD/ADHD. Would he be like he was yesterday? He was more subdued than normal. He worked his butt off helping around the house. He cleaned the TV room, he set the table, he wante to do the after supper dishes, he vaccumed, he cleaned his own room (and it looked like a nuclear bomb went off in there before), he got his pyjamas on without being asked, he packed his bag for the next day, he brushed his teeth and he got into his bed to “try” to go to sleep…..and then at 10:30pm he came out crying because he had been trying so hard to go to sleep and he just couldn’t….and that broke my heart.

This kid doesn’t sleep. It’s awful. I wonder if half his problem isn’t that he’s just sleep deprived. I don’t know what to do about that…but that’s a tangent….

He did all that stuff……NORMALLY….he would have ignored that mess and those responsibilites and created the worlds largest human-made spider web in the front room with my most favorite and most expensive ball of wool, and then would have been reduced to a sobbing mess when I didn’t leave it there as a work of art for the rest of eternity.

What do I mean by a spider web….well, take a ball of wool or string or something and attach it to and around every surface in a room, weaving under and in and out a couple of hundred times……yah…it’s awesome….and hell, to clean up….it usually involves scissors, lots of bad words mumble under your breath, maybe a yell or two, and almost always sobbing…..OH MY GOODNESS THE SOBBING!

Really, honestly, i have no idea where I’m going with all of this….I’ve just had 3 days at home with my darlings (I haven’t even talked about the “special-ness” of Xandra) and today is the first day that they are back at school and I have a moment to breathe.

I love my kids. I love their creativity. I hate that Jeremy needs some extra help to be able to function well in the world. I hate being tired. I hate worrying about Siah….that one’s weighing on me right now, but it must be a post for another day. I……..

Well…I have a lot of other “I’s” that I could say, but……couldd I hear from you?

What do you find is the most troubling, stressful or difficult thing that you deal with in your life? Heck, it doesn’t even have to be the most difficult….just something difficult or stressful?

Help a girl out, eh? Let me know that I’m not alone stressing about things?

Only the Second Time

Man, We’ve been doing this parenting gig for over 12 years now and for only the second time in that 12 years we’ve had to call poison control.

I think that’s a pretty good track record. I mean, I’d love it if we hadn’t had to call them ever, but for how……….energetic, and inventive my children are….I think that’s a decent number. In fact, I’m surprised that we aren’t on a first name basis with the fine folks over at the Poison Control Call Center.

The last time we called was when Jeremy swallowed a penny….that was SO MUCH FUN…you know…..waiting for the penny to drop…..literally!

Fun time, people, FUN TIMES!

Well, last night was not nearly as exciting. Siah had tried to do the Houdini Maneuver out of his highchair….have I mentioned that he’s climbing or crawling up onto anything and everything – again with the FUN TIMES!….and so we put him down on the kitchen floor. He waddled over to the empty dishwasher and then 2 seconds later started gagging. A barfing baby is not fun, but when you realze that the soap from the dishwasher – which is a mixture of Borax and Washing Soda – didn’t disolve completely away and that there was a little bit left in the soap dispenser and then you realize that your kid ate some of it……

It’s one of those “eye rolling, go and call the poison control people and find out if we need to go and spend the entire night sitting in the disease filled ER and possibly picking up goodness knows what and how that in and of itself has to be WAY worse than the tiny bit of borax that the baby just injested” moments.

Fortunately, the nice Poison Control guy said that we were morons for feeding our child Borax and then asked if we would not bother them so that the really impotant calls could get through.

No, they didn’t say that, but they weren’t concerned and said that there was nothing that we needed to do – Siah would be all okay!

So, in my concern and because these people weren’t nearly concerned enough for my child’s heath and safety, I utlized my Google medical degree and found out that…..

NOTHING! It really was okay! I mean, i shouldn’t be feeding him Borax for a snack, but apparently the Poison Control Dude did know what he was talking about and I really don’t need to worry…..which I still did…..totally, right?

He’s up and happy this morning and I’m assuming all is well.

Moral of the story……well….I don’t know what the moral of the story is, but….we won’t be feeding the baby any Borax any time soon, eh?