10 Things Every Child Needs to Hear

It's the hip hop happenin' thing, so I figured I would throw my hat into the ring with my own list of 10 things every child (in my house) needs to hear (CONSTANTLY.) If you're looking for a deep and meaningful list, there are plenty out there and I don't really want to beat a dead horse. However, if you'd like to grab a cup of coffee and some head-shaking empathy, I'm here for you.

above photo is by Melanie Reimer

1. GET OFF YOUR BROTHER. This applies to both the two year old, who, granted, probably took one of your things and ran off with it so I can see where you're coming from, and also to the baby, who appreciates your affection but also oxygen.
2. GET OFF YOUR SISTER. I do realize that both the four year old and the seven year old often have it coming, or were having fun with this about half a second ago; but ear-splitting screaming is a solid 'no, I am not enjoying this game' so move along.
3. BATHROOM TALK IN THE BATHROOM. As fascinating as your private parts are, and as hilarious as the noises they can make can be, we don't discuss face-farting at the table. I'm looking at you, girls.
4. PUT YOUR PANTS ON. Okay, the baby is exempt, because that's probably my bad. But the rest of you, pants, skirt, leggings, whatever; you're making the pizza guy uncomfortable.
5. YOU'RE NOT BLEEDING. This is a critical bit of assurance, often followed by denial of a bandaid. Bandaids don't grow on trees, and we both know that you intend to rip it off the second you leave my line of sight, then somehow sneak back and place it on the bottom of my sock.
6. WOULD IT BE FUNNY IF I KICKED YOU? No, it really wouldn't be, it would hurt and it wouldn't be nice and nobody would be laughing. The police would probably get involved, even. So why do you think it's funny that you've kicked your brother?
7. NO STANDING IN FRONT OF THE WINDOW NAKED. We live right on the 't' of a 3-way road so at night, with curtains open and the light on, your butt can be seen from a solid block away. I don't care if your dad just pulled up, he doesn't want you standing in front of the window naked, either.
8. SIT WITH YOUR BUM ON THE SEAT. Perhaps I seem like a cruel and relentless dictator of a mother, but we started getting really strict on this rule after a fall from a chair, fork in hand, ended with a flesh wound. This was naturally the same child that has been the star of every near-death experience that our family has encountered so far and is solely responsible for taking several years off of my life, at least double the four short years she has been around.
9. BRUSH YOUR HAIR OR I'LL CUT IT SHORT. What, is this not the motto of every family? It's not an idle threat, either, just ask Nicole. Short hair is not doom and gloom, I think a well-done short do is quite cute, but if it's not your cup of tea you're going to need to get up close and personal with a hairbrush once in a while. Do as I say, not as I do. I have more hats than you do.
10. OFF. Off your uncle, off your dad, off any poor bystander who looks strong enough to withstand you taking a running leap at them. It is not considered socially acceptable to literally jump on people without at least clearing it with them first.

(I'm assuming it's clear here that I'm being tongue in cheek, but just in case this disclaimer is necessary, I love my children to bits and I am eternally optimistic that they will someday grow up to be kind, thoughtful, witty, and productive members of society. Hopefully all of those in one, but I'll settle for one of each too, as long as the productive one can afford to pay someone nice to change my diapers some day. Y'all owe me, I've seen some things.)

 

 

 

 

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Pinky Swear

It’s been a weird week. On Monday, my husband slipped and fell while working on his crane truck, and while falling is never a good time, he unfortunately wound up having his pinkie catch somehow as he fell and basically just destroyed it. He was fortunate enough that he didn’t actually lose it – a moment while we all feel queasy – but he ripped it open, chipping one bone badly and just shattering the tip, losing a hunk of skin and muscle in the process.

Obviously he went straight to the ER. At the moment he has stitches and is on antibiotics, but next week he’ll be going in for surgery so they can see what they can do with it. Finger breaks are always tricky, since they’re such small bones and pretty impossible to cast. We’ve been keeping an eye on it and worrying a bit, changing dressings and all that, and our schedules have been really weird. The whole thing is a bit surreal and out of nowhere.

Mel-orange-drama

It all started innocently enough. The girls were eating toast, I was preparing some oatmeal cereal for Jackson, and I thought I should add some fruit to our breakfast. It was Saturday, why not a special treat for Olivia… I’ll bust out the mandarins.

The peak. The high. She abandoned her toast like yesterday’s old beat up flip flops and dove into that little orange like it was the cutest pair of ballet flats you’d ever seen. But then, faster than you could say “what do you mean parachute pants are coming back,” it was gone.

Nicole, however, was still pecking away at her peanut butter toast. She likes order, and she loves to savour. First her toast must be finished, then her orange carefully peeled (preferably by her mother) and segmented, then eaten one small piece at a time.

Olivia eyed up Nicole’s mandarin pensively. “No, Olivia,” two voices at once, and she looks at us as if she is offended. “Cole’s orange,” she says almost defensively, then her words twist with a hint of melancholy. “You eat it, Cole? You eat your orange? Yours?” Her eyes fill with the forbidden fruit. She moves a chair closer.

Nicole eyes her distrustfully, and looks at me, her hand hovering over her orange. I spoon cereal into Jackson’s eager little mouth. Olivia moves another seat closer and Nicole snatches her orange up and moves it to the other side of her plate, furthest from Olivia. “Cole’s orange,” Olivia tries to reassure her placidly, slipping off the chair and sitting on Nicole’s other side, while Nicole switches her orange back. Olivia looks charming and conversational. Nicole is starting to look panicked at this point, and decides she and her breakfast are safest beside me.

Olivia watches the mandarin orange intently as it finds a home back across the table, then feigns a casual attitude as she follows Nicole. Then she abandons all pretence and stands on Nicole’s chair, leaning over her now-shrieking sister to stare hypnotically at the orange. “Orange… orange… Cole’s orange… orange…” she chants through Nicole’s dramatic shrieks. “Olivia, back off!” I bark, and she looks up at me, startled. “Okay, I back off…” she says remorsefully, to my surprise, and does so, for approximately two-thirds of a second. Then she’s right back on Nicole’s chair, leaning over her to try get a glimpse of the orange that Nicole is now curled up protectively around, still shrieking.

I throw my hands up and give up on feeding Jackson. “Nicole, please go finish breakfast in your room so you can eat in peace. And run.” She happily obliges, Olivia hot on her tail, until the door slams. My wild, intense middle child returns to me, hot fat tears running down her face and her large blue eye eyes full of sorrow.

I stifle a grin, and casually start peeling my own mandarin orange, which until now had apparently gone unnoticed. Immediately those eyes regain their sparkle, and she hopefully says, “Mommy’s orange?” “Yes, Mommy’s orange,” I tell her firmly. She nods, smiling at me, and we both know I’m going to share, but I say it anyways, and she bubbles up, a giggle escaping.

And a few minutes later, Nicole comes out of her room with two orange slices. “I have pieces for you, Olivia, because you’re two years old. I’m the best big sister ever, hey?” Olivia explodes into a million tiny pieces of pure joy, and they’re best friends again.

And I never, ever put mandarins on the breakfast table again.

What’s up, bananapants?

I was going to write “What’s up, buttercup?” but I’m pretty sure I’ve already used that title. Bananapants sounds like it is potentially crude but it’s a phrase my 5 year old throws around and apparently it refers to pants made of bananas. Which is gross and you can’t sit down, so it’s an insult. I apologize, I blanked.

My kids have been various forms of sick, leading to not sleeping and weakened immunity and eye rubbing and ending in a double eye infection for Jackson. I think we’re coming out of the woods, though, and that’s really for the best as the laundry situation is slightly worse than usual actually probably about average if you take the last four years and combine them all out mathematically.

As to what I’m up to, I’m:

a) looking crazier than normal as I walk around my house vacuuming the air. We have a fruit fly situation and it’s the only thing that’s working. A pox upon you and your household, I say to whatever plant product those nasty things hopped a ride in on.

b) quilting. I was joking to myself I should make a tutorial on my unique quilting technique, Crazy Lines or as I like to call it, Just Do It. (Yes, I joke to myself. And write blog posts in my head. Substantially more frequently than on here, lately, actually.) It would start like this:

Step One – Have no idea what you’re doing. The fact that you’re reading a quilting tutorial written by someone who’s never quilted before in her life is a good start. Go with that and embrace it.

Let me know if I should start writing that up for y’all.

c) This one is something I haven’t actually done yet. Check out Cori-Lynn’s blog here for a good cause to support, and if you’re in the Hamilton, ON area (which I am not, to clarify. Still trying to get my doors unfrozen here in Winnipeg, MB.) a silent auction at which you can potentially get your hands on the opportunity to have a handmade dress for your little one by yours truly. And I mean, I have never sold my dresses before because I tend to be stingy with anything that takes me more than half an hour to make. So this is a rare opportunity.

d) On instagram, username lorchick. In there like a dirty shirt, kids. Share sometimes grainy pictures of my kids/baking/sewing/hair with crazy curlers in it? YES PLEASE. Sometimes even baskets of laundry. Oh, stoppit, I know. Reign it in, crazies.

Almost didn’t have a picture in there. Phew. Close one.

Because the world needed another home video of a laughing baby

Babies are adorable so that we adore them even when they won't nap for more than 15 minutes at a time so they're so overtired they are alternately laughing and screaming.
It's science.
 
Jackson, 4 months. Naps = broken. At least he still sleeps through the night.

I don’t actually sound like that, that is my talking-to-baby-voice. Thanks to the magic of voice messaging thanks to my husband and smartphones if I’ve learned anything this year, it’s how annoying my own voice is and what a blessing it is that anyone can stand to talk to me in person at all.

Mission : Play With Your Food

Just a quick pop-by say-hi. I thought I’d share something I came up with to distract my adorable monster Olivia (who refers to herself as both Olivia AND Monster so you know its legit) yesterday. She is pretty obedient, but of the school of ‘mom didn’t specifically say Don’t Climb Up The Side Of The Six Story Building or at least not in the last ten minutes’ and treats creating chaos like it’s her job. Yesterday I had a moment of desperation brilliance and Mission: Distract Olivia aka Play With Your Food was born.

I quickly (and somewhat poorly) drew a house, car, and little playground for Olivia to play with Teddy Grahams on. This bought me a good 15-20 minutes, not counting the time spent adding a sandbox here and a pool there later to add more distraction. If you’re curious about the dots, I had started off with dots for her to place them and some candy gummies on, which was also successful but not half as time-buying as Teddy Graham Playground.

Good luck with distracting your own lovely little monsters, and let me know in the comments what you’ve come up with in moments of desperation brilliance!

Hey Howdy Ho Blog Title

It’s amazing to me that I don’t get paid just to write blog titles, first of all.

Thirdly, I had the flu. (I skipped second just to be contrary, because it’s been that kind of week.)

The flu bug only really took me down for about 24 hours, but that kind of overlapped with the end of a day in which we had had company plus most of the next day. If you are a mom, or if you have ever had a mom or experienced one from a distance, you may have noticed that when moms get sick, the house pretty much explodes. Sets on fire, practically.

Anyways, I’ve been taking forever (read: four days) to get my energy levels back up and back on top of my housework most of the way. If you follow me on instagram (which I have been on again for all of five days, also) you’ll be aware of the following: (and as such, this will be the most boring blog post ever)

This happened. Goodbye, android. Since my husband did it (well, I did the first crack, but he finished the thing off while I was at church) he replaced it with a phone of my choice. Iphone 4~! “But Androids can do more.” “But I don’t want to do more.” I’m too lazy old for this new technology nonsense.

I had a really, really good mail day. The Puppets book is for Nicole and the rest are all for ME! Funny thing is, Sew U is my second copy; the book is always on loan so I bought a second to keep as a reference. I actually have Sew U Knits as well. I la-la-LOVE craft/sewing books, such eye candy! Huge craft book sale at bookcloseouts.ca and I scored good.

These are not for me, because my husband doesn’t want me to be happy  loves his best friend more than me didn’t know I liked Bon Jovi so he didn’t even ask. I am going to take off with them  hope he gets stampeded by a herd of anteaters hope he has a good time out with his best buddy.

Nothing to see here. Move along, move along. (I took putting off doing the folding and putting away to a whole new level by sitting opposite of it and taking a picture of it. Turns out no amount of instagram filter can make unfolded laundry look pretty.)

I baked bread. More than once, actually. I won’t buy bread anywhere but Costco, and only a specific type. But I did not feel like going to Costco this week, to the extend that I actually have baked bread twice just to get out of it. I am avoiding work to the extent that I actually go to twice the amount of effort required to do that work as it would take to just go already.

Speaking of Olivia, guess what she’s saying in this picture? “I am two!” That’s right, she finally is actually two years old! It feels kind of anticlimatic. She couldn’t POSSIBLY still be due for her terrible twos to start. Right? RIGHT??!!!!

So, happy birthday to my wascally wabbit, my silly monkey, the thorn in my side but the rose in my cheeks. She is the most exciting thing to ever happen to us (hopefully) and we are so blessed to have her (seriously) … she sure makes life interesting but she loves us so hard and we love her straight back!
She’s trouble and a half and the most creatively naughty child BUT she is SO OBEDIENT at the same time. Counting to three WORKS for this kid. She’s not sure what happens after two but she doesn’t want to find out!
She is so very generous – if I try and give her a treat on the down-low, she demands one for Nicole as well (an unwavering loyalty that does NOT go both ways, sorry to say.)
She is more persistent than most adults I know (to my chagrin) and boy howdy, does she like to be naked (to my consternation.)
She keeps our (extended)family rolling with laughter, not to mention many of our friends. Untameable hooligan that she is, Chris and I are pretty happy that she’s ours. We just have to give each other pep talks once in a while. You’re the boss! You’re in control of the situation! She knows it and doesn’t like it, is all! (all false, probably, but we like to pretend.) And hey, I don’t have two under two any more! That means it’s all easy peasy from here, right?

At least until puberty hits?

The Stuff of Nightmares

Allow me to tell you the sordid tale of editing these photos. Let me warn you… it is not for the weak of heart.

It all started out innocently enough; the girls decided they wanted to play outside for a while, and I snapped a few shots of their sweet little oreo-covered faces while they got ready. (I asked them if there was a horse in my lens, and as it turns out, there are two; a white one, and a blue one. No wonder Olivia looks so intense here.)

Eventually, play time turned to nap time and first Jackson and then later Olivia were tucked into their beds for naps. I started the laundry, popped a T-disc in my Tassimo machine while tidying the kitchen a bit, settled Nicole in for some quiet time. I sat down at the table with my coffee and my laptop and started editing. And here, my friends… here we come upon my cardinal error. I relaxed and let my guard down.

I became immersed in layers and highlights and sharpening. I finished my two favourite pictures of Olivia and uploaded them to facebook. As I was about to open more pictures, something unpleasant began permeating my fog of relaxation. I wrinkled my nose a bit, thinking Nicole had farted a few feet away. Then I stopped and sat up straight, inhaling the unpleasant aroma a little more deeply. That wasn’t a fart smell… that was a poop smell. I felt a slow creeping sense of dread, and right then, Olivia piped up from her room down the hall, “Mommy… I pooooooooped.”

Immediately I recognized that there was no possible way that a poop safely tucked away in a diaper in a closed room down the hall would smell so strong.  I buried my face in my hands and took a moment to revel in the joys of motherhood. Then I steeled myself and opened the door to the most horrific thing I have ever seen (all day so far.)

I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say she had decided to try and change herself – thankfully containing the mess to the change table – before opting to call for help. It was one of those situations where you just turn around, start the tub, and then come back and hold your dearest darling child at arms’ length and dump them in the tub, shirt and all, then start dumping water on them while the tub is draining. Wincing but bravely facing the overabundance of fecal matter, I bravely washed down my little monster, who was just excited to be in water. Disgusting poo-water, but water.

Suddenly, she makes a disgusted noise and points, then loudly squeals, “Eeeeeeuuuuuwwww!”

As a little hairball of postpartum-shedding mommyhair floats by.

 

And that, my friends, is the horrifying, disgusting story …
… of how gross my shedding hair is.

Jackson Style

I have very classy and sophisticated taste in music. Just kidding… OPPA GANGNAM STYLE! Feel free to picture me dancing like a moron to that, I can assure you, the mental picture is probably fairly accurate. Don’t get me wrong, I also have classy and sophisticated taste in music… but I can definitely get down to some cheesy K-Pop. And as we like to sing in this house… OPPA JACKSON STYLE!

I’ve pulled out my camera and dusted off my copy of Adobe Elements. As I get further and further away from pregnancy, I’m getting more and more back into my hobbies again ;) Just in time to get Jackson’s 3 month baby pictures! My sweet little guy is still quite happy with just chilling out and being a baby – he can’t even sit through dinner in his Bumbo without starting to slump at 3.5 months – and that’s just how we like him.

The one thing that is a bit of a shame is I’m hard pressed to get giggles out of this little guy! He’ll give up the yuks for almost anyone else, and he bestows upon me heaps and heaps of smiles and cuddles. But oh mom, you’re just not that funny. Sigh. Whatever, dude, Olivia thinks I’m hilarious.

code purple

 

We have thrush. Jackson is taking it like a man. Read: very poorly. Think man-cold. He has man-thrush and he wants his mommy. Since we started treating him with genetian violet (Hence the Why So Serious? face above) he is back to sleeping through the night. He just politely requests that I hold him, touch him, squeeze him, love him 24/7 outside of that. I just wore him to the dentist, where Nicole had an emotional breakdown, no big deal but that’s a pretty good summary for my day, and then came home and held him. The end. What I was supposed to do today was get up early, toss in a load of laundry, have a nice cup of coffee while blogging and checking the facebooks and stuff. Then feed my lovely children, work out, come home, change the loads and do some tidying, dentist. Then come home, naps for the little ones, and then haul ass with laundry and packing things away because we’re starting the kitchen reno right now.

Actual day: wake up, feed Jackson, hold Jackson, feed Jackson, hold Jackson, make french toast while Nicole holds Jackson, feed Jackson, hold Jackson, dentist while holding Jackson, feed Jackson, hold Jackson, try put Jackson down, think about laundry, groan inwardly, apologize to Jackson for thinking he’d sleep independantly, hold Jackson, feed Jackson while writing this blog post. The above picture sort of represents the last few days except today I have dubious personal hygiene. I did brush my teeth, and fingercomb my hair when I applied the dry shampoo, and today I’m wearing normal (but maternity haha) jeans. But aren’t those teal jeans fun? That’s the day the thrush was really really hurting me – still hurts today but the Genetian Violet has really taken that down a notch – so my fun $15 teal stretch skinny jeans from Giant Tiger really cheered me up. Oh, and those are my new glasses, free from clearlycontacts.ca and boy howdy did they ship fast.

Now I’m going to go put Jackson back in the wrap and try get some of that cleaning and laundry done. Oy vey. I have a friend coming over in 15 minutes and she is about to get a very real glimpse of my house, which is okay because she’s one of my besties and this is not going to be her first very real glimpse, but possibly the worst because I smell like maybe my shirt sat in the washer overnight because I forgot to switch the loads, but I needed a clean shirt so I put it in the dryer and wore it anyways.

Dontcha wish your girlfriend was hot-like-me!

Hi Fattie!

Why yes, we are contemplating renaming the blog www.JacksonReid.com. I’m not sure who ‘we’ is, actually, although I’m sure Chris would love to stake a claim for co-ownership of the blog. Which he can when we can rename his business Foundations ON{thelaundry}LINE. I’ll get Nicole to pitch it to him, I think she’s almost got him sold on her idea to buy a schoolbus to drive her to school in. She’s got a plan, even that someone will babysit Jackson and Olivia while we take her to school in the bus. I’m sure he’ll see reason and logic soon.

I think that’s the singlemost terrible tangent that I’ve distracted myself with yet. I didn’t even get past the first picture before my mind wandered. It’s amazing that people read this nonsense.

What I was aiming for was the fact that my little fatty is 2 months old! That zoomed by. Also, before you get sick of my tangents and click away, I want to throw out there that he slept 10 hours on Saturday night. I really just think everyone should know that. Tell your friends. Tell your neighbours. Maybe share it on facebook. Also I think it’s important you know that he has the biggest, goobiest smile and it makes me squawk out the most ridiculous noises. Like a parrot who got hoofed across the room in the middle of a mating call.

He’s the first one of our children who will carry a nickname beyond babyhood, I think. I give my kids beautiful nicknames. All of them get called Babe a lot. Nicole was Porkchop, Porker, Babygirl (but like BabyGuh-rull), Chicken, and a few other ones that I don’t remember because it was five years ago. Olivia was very regularly called My Little Meatball, as in “Hell-LO my little meatball!” in a super perky voice,  once again BabyGur-rull, Chubbamonkey, and Princess. You can see why these may not have been so great after the initial baby phase. Similarly, I call Jackson “my little fatty” and that’s not likely to stick. Chris calls him Junior (Jackson Reid – J.R. – Junior) and Olivia calls him Jackson, Jackie, and JackJack alternately. JackJack fills me with delight, for whatever reason I find it adorable, so I do call him that. In high pitched voices. He makes me talk in high pitched voices. Don’t tell me you don’t want to tell him things in high pitched voiced when you look at that fat little face. I won’t believe you.

I have some more projects I’ve done, I just need to get some photographs. Currently I’m working on doing some handstitched embellishments on the bodice of a little top I’m making for Olivia. I’m going to get Chris to do a little video clip or two of techniques I’m using – blanket stitch on applique and french knots – in case anyone is interested. I’ve got a quilt top made up for her that I’m waiting on the backing for, and I’ve got all the supplies minus the backing (doing matching backings) for the V&Co Houndstooth Quilt I’ve been crushing on forever.

Come back in a few days, though, and I’ll share Olivia’s first painting project, which included her very deliberately painting her nipple neon orange. She’s a free spirit. Also I took in a pair of Nicole’s pants at the waist, which barely counts as anything but they are the coolest pants and I want to share them.

Is it just me…

… or is Blogger’s comment captcha getting just stupid? Now not only do I have to figure out unintelligible letters, but numbers as well? And naturally it took me three failed tries to realize that the random door with numbers on it was part of the captcha and I needed to write that as well. But first I tried hitting the sound, because I figured I was obviously not ‘getting’ the letters… and wow, that is worse than the written version. I had to play it a few times, even though I clearly wasn’t going to use it, just to be sure that I had misheard right. Garbled nonsense in entirety. No wonder people leave comments less and less lately.

Don’t be an asshole, blogger. 
(I can write that. My kids don’t read.)

And no, I don’t use the captcha. I get a few spam comments a week, but blogger actually does a pretty good job of weeding them out and not posting them to the blog posts itself. I just delete them out of my inbox, along with the 67 subscriptions to BHG/Chatelaine/Parents/FitnessThing/etc newsletters that I have signed up for and read absolutely never.

Schoolchild?!

Guys, I have a schoolchild! And also, I did manage to singlehandedly get her and her siblings to school, 15 minutes away, for 8:30. Actually, that’s a lie; it turned out to be 8:35 and 20 minutes, because I live in the depths of not one but THREE other schools (elementary, middle, and high) and the traffic that entails. It’s a cluster… um… it’s not pretty. And I may have sat three houses down from my house mom-swearing (“Come on, buddy! Even I’m less of a grandma-driver than that! GO! GOGOGO! Okay and now there’s traffic again, too late, we’re just going to sit here forever, thanks for that.”) at some guy who appeared to be quite nervous about making a left turn without a stop sign to hold his hand and tell him he’s pretty.

So okay, I completely forgot to snap a dropping-her-off-first-day picture. Which is too bad, because I made her a new tunic dress and this was going to be my chance to take a picture. My time to shine. Also because it was her first day of school and I wanted a picture of her to commemorate the last few moments of her as a pre-school-child. Parent fail.  I resolved to get one on the pickup. Even if it was just my cameraphone.

Then she wanted me to drop her off in the parking lot. Um, this is day one? You’re supposed to cling to my waist and beg me to stay when I tell you we’re leaving you in the classroom. Nope, I had to ask for my kiss goodbye. But I did get it, and enthusiastically.

And this is what greeted me when I went to pick her up:

Why yes, she is aiming a bit low. Please enjoy the bottom bit of the tunic, by the way. I made that. Me. She wasn’t running to me… she was running to Olivia, who she scooped up and spun around. “Olivia, I missed you!!” It was adorable. Everyone ate it up. And then she gave Jackson a bit smooch, and I was given the blessed privilege to drive her home. However, she filled my ears with excited chatter, telling me about her day. And also, when can she go back?

I’ve known for a while she was QUITE ready for school. She’d been bored and getting into quite a bit of mischief. I’m expecting roses and sparkles from her from here on in. She’s already willingly cleaning her room and making her bed daily again! It’s got to be ready at a moments notice for her to leave and go to SCHOOL!

I got a Salted Caramel Mocha to console me, before which I dropped my two littler ones off at my sister in laws for two hours and hit CanadianFabricStoreLand to take advantage of their big fat sale. Quilting solids and notions, I think yes. I may have picked up some sequin trim while I was there, in two different colors, thinking of my eldest child and her love of sparkles. And when I got home with the younger two and they were both napping, I may have caught myself staring at her bike thoughtfully. But I also cleaned the house, folded laundry, and plotted out some projects. Since I’d gotten so much done during the day, I even tripped and fell into the sewing room for a while late last night and cut out the pieces for a top for Olivia.

I think we may just make it through this. 

And just because I pretty much stayed on-topic the whole blog post and I’m not entirely sure I’m comfortable with that, here’s a quick cameraphone shot of my little fattie, who has woken up this past week, and even went down to only looking paranoid and stressed out about half the time.

Oh hey, where’s Laura?

Probably feeding Jackson.

July 28 and August 20, in size newborn Carter’s onesie and 0-3m babyGAP shorts. (which clearly, no, he did not wear for anything but a picture in July) … he went from his birth weight of 6lb 9oz to his current (although its been a few days so who knows) weight of 10 and a half pounds…. in a month. Three pounds of that in the last two weeks. Anyone who tells you breastfed babies don’t get fat is sort of a brick, because that’s 2 out of 3 babies that appeared to be living off of straight cream. If Olivia is any indication, though, once he gets mobile he’ll be a scrawny monkey again. So I’ll have to enjoy nomnomnom-ing him while I can.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And me? Well, here is a picture of me taken a few days ago:

I looked like this once for a few hours in the last month. LOL. Adjusting to three has been a whirlwind! As I explained to Chris, “Some days its like, ‘The house is clean, the kids are in bed, I baked some cookies and froze a batch of pre-scooped dough for another day. Successful day!” and other days it’s like, “Nobody was hospitalized, the house is not on fire, and no day-drinking! Successful day!” (and lets be honest, those pre-scooped cookie dough balls are mostly being consumed straight from the freezer on Is It Bedtime Yet days.) It’s probably rougher because Chris is gone most of the time, but for the most part we start and end the days with a smile. (Granted, the morning smile is ‘glad to see you awake’ and evening is ‘glad to see you finally asleep’)

If you might recall, Chris started his own foundations business last year. The good news is, it’s flourishing – they are super busy. The bad news is, they are super busy. On a good week, Chris makes it home for supper 2 or 3 times from Monday to Saturday, and leaves again after tucking the kids in bed. It’s hard to believe that in a few months it will be –40 and he’ll be stuck at home for three days straight, getting cabin fever and entertaining himself with intellectually stimulating games like I’m Not Touching You.

If you’ve never been privy to that game in the backseat of a car during a family road trip, back before every minivan had a dvd player in back, you used to sit there and Bored Younger Sibling would sit there and carefully get as far into the bubble of Prickly Older Sibling and repeat, “I’m not touching you… I’m not touching you…. I’m not touching you.” Eventually, Prickly Older Sibling would suffer a mental break and attempt to murder Bored Younger Sibling. The vehicle would erupt with violence, Bored Younger Sibling screaming MOOOOM!!! SHE’S HITTING ME! I NEVER TOUCHED HER! SHE STARTED IT!, and mom and dad hollering about pulling this car over. Ah, the good old days. When families communicated.

My girls have been playing that game a lot lately, except they skip the first part and go straight for the brawling. I finally snapped out of my new-baby-no-brain haze and remembered that you have to stay ahead of your kids, not behind, so we’ve been making pink sparkle princess playdough, playing ‘car wash’ with the outside toys, we played with a bucket of rice, they play puppies, and I even decided I value peace more than quiet and have some really annoying musical instrument toys stashed away for fighty days. As long as I have some activities on standby, we seem to have our day go pretty smoothly.

Do you have any suggestions for activities that are good for both a toddler and a kindergartener, but don’t require a lot of adult participation? I’m hoping to find more things that involve me doing setup, and hopefully getting Nicole to help me do cleanup, but where the girls can do the actual activity together themselves while I get some stuff done. Or, more likely…. feed Jackson.

And then she was locked away for the rest of her pregnancy

So I was all up in the blog talking about all these projects I had on the go, and then I just vanished from the face of the internet. I know.

Here’s a summary of  April, which surprisingly has actually not resulted in being locked away in a nice white room with padded walls. So far.

- my ultrasound shows that my due date will likely be moved from Aug 2 to Aug 12. I say ‘likely’ b/c they forgot to send the u/s to my midwife so that was based on my memory of what the u/s said, but it will be confirmed next month at my appointment. I wasn’t really counting on not being pregnant on the 12th, anyways. My babies get comfy. I guess I was sort of counting on not being pregnant on say, the 20th, and there’s no guarantee of that anymore. But we’re going to not think about that for the moment.

- My friend and I patched and primed my walls. Then painted. But I accidentally bought (poorly labelled) oil based primer. So that meant re-priming those spots and repainting. Benjamin Moore Aura paint. Yeah, ouch.

- while running to buy more paint, I rear-ended someone. Just one of those things. We exchanged info, then I called my hubby and bawled like a baby, and he came and made sure I was okay and drove me home. Nobody was hurt, and baby is fine too. We’re out a $200 deductible and Chris is a little bummed that I managed to just barely not quite write off the van, which is not his fav vehicle.

-our $150 ikea set is just destroyed. Olivia has been slowly pegging off the chairs by tipping them and they just can’t take it and have been slowly shattering. Our table wound up lame quite a while back but is now completely 3-legged. Things are a little desperate. And we want something made back when things were made to be nearly indestructible. I found the perfect set on kijiji for a GREAT price, but lost it due to an internet error. So very, very disappointing. But since we’re at a point where we are literally desperate, we have to settle for ‘nearly indestructible +  do not hate’ which is a really sucky standard to go with, but we had been counting on the table set lasting us til after our kitchen renos, so we aren’t really prepared right now. Frustrating.

-my sewing machine is trying to die on me. I will not let it. If it dies I will throw it off the roof, though. I promise. *shakes fist*

All in all, I’ve had a frustrating couple of weeks but I took out my frustration on bursts of decluttering and reorganizing. I may have thrown out some things that would horrify you. Like a perfectly good apothecary jar, because someone broke the lid on the matching one and I was pretty upset because instead of saying something about breaking it, which would have bummed me out but I would have shrugged it off, the lid was put back on and turned around so the large missing piece wasn’t noticeable and nothing was said. The (clear) jar was holding Nicole’s dental floss picks, and she could have cut herself pretty badly the next time she went to grab one because someone else chose to try hide their mistake.

(no, not my brother. Apparently he has run across a few people that read my blog in university etc, and has PERSONALLY thanked me for sharing the covered-himself-in-glitter-and-declared-himself-a-vampire story with the internets. But I’m pretty sure he’s secretly pleased with himself.)

Anyway, clearly I’m not always sunshine and rainbow and brown paper packages tied up with strings all the time. April has not been my favourite so far!

You know what is my favourite? My crazed offspring! Let’s marvel at my unedited photos from my point-and-shoot camera. No pretties for you, my friends.
I wanted to take a picture of Olivia yesterday at supper because I thought she looked hilarious standing there in her puffy tutu, stuffing her face with sausage. And for some reason, whenever she noticed the camera, she cranked her head at a ridiculous angle.

and again

Why yes, she is quite the filthy little hooligan, isn’t she? (please admire our trimless door. We’re still WIP up in here. Besides, trim is for fancy people, and my table has three legs. But isn’t the grey paint nice?)

My girls are kind of ridiculous together. We have a new crib that’s much shorter, and Nicole considers it her duty, nay, privilege, nay, RIGHT to take Olivia out of her bed in the morning. Olivia could haul herself out of the crib no problem, but chooses not to. We are all very grateful to her for her self-inflicted imprisonment. Which is kind of a lie b/c everyone lines up to haul Olivia out of her bed after a nap because 98% of the time, she is full of sunshine and you just became her favourite person. The other 2% of the time you kind of throw a bottle at her and run away, if you’re smart.

Awww, muffin. Doesn’t she just look precious and sweet in this next picture? You’d never guess her favourite game is to whack uncle AJ in the face and cackle like the wicked witch of the west.

Let’s make up for my crabby whinefest earlier with Crazy Kid Stories.

So, I had a case of Minute Maid orange juice boxes at the top of the stairs, after dragging it inside from a Costco trip I was hoping maybe Chris could take it down. The next morning, Olivia quietly sat there and opened no less than three boxes (apparently the seal is not that hard to conquer on those things) and spilled/drank a bunch. Eventually she was overcome with … Shame? Pride? One of those, probably the latter, and brought me a box to show me what she’d been up to. Awesome. Thankyou for rubbing that in.

And as for Nicole, she was calling me in the middle of the night; at bedtime she had been offered one of two blankets, and in the middle of the night she apparently changed her mind. I gave her a remarkably calm chat about wants vs needs; that is, what is and is not considered worth calling mommy for in the middle of the night, and how to decide if she really needed my help or if she should go back to sleep and worry about it in the morning. After pondering that terrific-mom-moment speech for a moment, she asked, “Can you get Papa then, so he can get it for me?” No.

Greetings from the Tropical Arctic

Greetings to one and all from the land of the it’s-normal-to-blizzard-here-in-March where it has been balmy enough to break out tshirts and capri pants and perhaps even some shorts, if you’re being active! We are just loving it, even if we have that bit of fear in the back of our minds that the foot and a half of snow that was here maybe two weeks ago tops will be back tomorrow or the day after.

First of all, I wanted to get a confession out of the way. Just rip it off like a bandaid. I just bought a groupon for not one but two spray tan sessions. I know. What a vain little hussy. But listen, as a 21ish weeks pregnant lady, I think it is perfectly legit for me to desire a little faux tan without having to slather my increasing-in-size body with tanning lotion in some sort of shameful naked yoga where I end up with zebra stripes because my balance is off. And I’ve gotten a spray tan once before, since my hubby and I weren’t doing anything special for our 5 year anniversary, as a little pick-me-up oh-where-did-my-stretchmarks-go. Now that I’ve blasted you with a plethora of unnecessary mental pictures, I will leave you the reassurance that with the lowest level of faux-tan available, I look nothing like an oompa-loompa.

And now we shall wash your brain with a soothing medley of Cute Pictures Of My Kids.

There, do we feel better? Ahh, sunshine and spring. Just what the doctor ordered!

Is anyone particularly interested in a little tutorial video on how to quickly fix your pictures up using free Windows Live software? You might be surprised to find that many of you have it built in to your computer already. It is quite simple and easy and great for little bitty tweaks like adjusting exposure/warmth… I don’t even pull most of my photos into photoshop/elements if they’re just going up on the blog or on my personal fb page for my friends&fam. Any of these photos in this post, for example, were either untouched or just had the exposure, tint, warmth, and saturation maybe tweaked a bit. (other photos in the past that have had things like eye pops and such did find their way into photoshop, but these ones don’t have any of that. I may eye pop the one closeup of Olivia yet though.)

but we still love each other

If you follow my blog’s facebook page, then you know that this week has been this sort of week:

My kids have been varying degrees of sick since Saturday, and Chris started up a few days ago and now I’ve joined the famjam in the sore throat department. Both girls are on antibiotics now, and as far as I figure, what happened was that Nicole got a sinus+ear infection and then a sinus cold, and Olivia got a sinus cold and then a sinus+ear infection. I had figured both girls had a sinus cold from the get-go but when I took them in b/c I was strongly suspicious of infection in Olivia and thinking Nicole was starting to get there, it turned out Nicole was much further along. The doctor assured me she probably has a high pain tolerance, because I was stalking that kid with questions about how she felt and nothing was declared hurty until the night before.

Low moments of the week include that my kids hate each other when they’re sick. Well, really just Olivia kind of got a Man Cold or something b/c from day one she was draping herself all over me and only me, and if Nicole got too close she’d swat at her or wrap her arms around me and declare, “MINE!” Kind of hilarious except poor Nicole just wanted a family cuddle. Anyways, that got old fast for her and they were glaring each other down in no time.
Other low moments include Nicole having several fever spikes, the highest of which was 103.7F … poor Chris was manning the thermometer while I was running to Safeway and he was freaking out when I got home. It’s really scary watching that number go up… and up… and up! We were lucky though, a close friend of mine’s son had this same cold and he had a febrile seizure at a much lower temp and they wound up in the hospital, scary stuff. (And she went into labor what, 24 hours later? Nadine wins Exhausting Week Award, no contest.)

High moments include them starting to feel well enough to get along this morning and being quite sweet together. Olivia was feeling sucky yet and burrowed her face in my arm, and Nicole rubbed her back and said, “Oh, Olivia is such a sweetie baby; I sure picked a good sweetie baby.” “Oh, you picked her, did you?” “Yes, I told Papa. ‘I want this baby, Olivia.’”
Earlier in the morning Nicole brought me a hardware store flyer and showed me some drill set or something and wistfully told me, “I hope Papa can buy this.” “For who? And why?” “For himself, because it’s AWESOME!!!”
There were a few other sweet moments playing with Olivia’s blankie and stuffed bear, where they kept passing him back and forth and Olivia kept saying, “Thankyou.” That’s her new word, and she repeats it over and over while I change her poop diapers. And the way they have been lately, trust me, it is well deserved.

I’m quite used to my kids being little demons when they come out of a really sick spell, so I’m beyond pleased that they’re actually being quite sweet this morning. I’ll come back and re-read this post in about 7 hours when they have me pulling my hair out….

Oh hi

Nicole got some sticker earrings, play rings, and lip gloss for Christmas. She coated her face in two of those three things one day. I told her she was fancy and took a picture.

It’s really hard to properly convey the amount of lipgloss that was all over her face, but suffice it to say she was quite shiny. (She sure does look tired, I know. It’s a trendy thing around here. More on that later.)

As for me, I know, I dropped off the face of the earth for just over a week. I’m alive. I had a root canal, got puffy and sulky, did a bunch of house work, had company, got tired and sulky, knitted things, cleaned and housework and all that in repetition… you get the picture.

I’m going to give you some stellar advice now, so heed and harken. If you require a root canal, do not schedule it first thing in the morning. I figured I would get it over and done with. It went something like this.

Oh, this isn’t so bad. Freezing helps. Somewhat uncomfortable still, but whatever.

Okay, I’m done. I feel spiffy, I think I’ll pick up a few groceries on the way home. I’m a hero.

Okay, I got a root canal and I don’t get the big deal. I’m going to blindly dither around for the next two hours, completely and blissfully unaware of the pain that’s coming my way when that local anaesthetic wears off. (Please note that spellcheck is not required for me to spell anaesthetic. Applause.)

Okay, so this is starting to hurt. Maybe there’s something to the root canal phobia that gets generated, after all.

Waaah, my face hurts with the hurts of a million hurts and all my teeth feel like they also had root canals because I don’t know, sympathy pains or they are all letting out a rebel yell at the death of their noble comrade.

The rest is less interesting, mostly just me in the fetal position for a few hours, and then dosing on Tylenol and pulling it together to make spaghetti noodles and sauce for supper. (I have a pasta maker. So now I don’t buy noodles. I like to make things more complicated, if I can.) If you got through all that, the moral is, get a root canal at the END of the day so you can go straight to bed afterwards.

That aside, this week’s big project is a big old room swaparoo. For a while now we’ve been facing the grim reality of the fact that while our girls love sharing a room, it’s a bit of a nightmare.

Olivia wakes up crying at 3am, Nicole the light sleeper also wakes up. Tired Nicole.

Tired Nicole is also Naughty Nicole. Naughty Nicole throws a fit at bedtime after they’re both tucked in, because she knows that if she yells I will be quite ticked off because then Olivia will wake up and/or not fall asleep.  Tired Olivia. Frustrated Mommy.

Tired Olivia goes to bed ridiculously early the next day, leading to her waking up ridiculously early and waking up Nicole. Tired Nicole. Tired Mommy. Frustrated Tired Mommy.

Cycle of DOOM!

So, Chris’ office is 90% moved into my craft room, which temporarily renders it unusable, but I’m going to make it work so we can share the space. We just both have to work hard to keep it clean. It’s going to be a rough ride but guess what? I’ll have so much more sleep and less frustration – THEORETICALLY – that I will be able to take on anything.*

So then we will be finishing the flooring and closet in that room, repainting it a neutral color just in case we decide to move this summer, and moving Nicole in. By week’s end, hopefully.

 

 

*I am fully willing to acknowledge that I may or may not be a pregnant hormonal mess who cries about anything and more sleep won’t likely adjust that much because I did get a decent sleep Saturday night but that didn’t stop me from tearing up when the minister prayed for the expectant mothers in the congregation and how they get tired and I was like YEAH I GET TIRED and teared up and then got all annoyed that I tear up over everything… and then got so annoyed over tearing up over everything that I teared up over tearing up over everything. But I got it together before the prayer was over so that’s our little secret. Just you, me, and the internet.

Sugar, Sugar…

The other week Nicole and I whipped up some Sugar Cookies. We always do hearts, apparently. Well, the heart cutters are the ones always in my drawer, and I didn’t feel like digging around for something more seasonal. And Christmas is about LOVE. Plus there are snowflakes on our light blue cookies. It’s very wintery.

When Olivia gets enthusiastic about taking bites of things, she closes her eyes, makes this face, and wags her head back and forth. Sometimes she also scrunches her nose with excitement. She is our true blue goof, just a dork to the very core.

Who’s that hiding in the couch? Why yes, that is Brother Who Lives In The Basement, aka Uncle AJ. Once again, he didn’t look pretty so he hid from the camera. Yes, he is The Fonz.

Things have been crazy at my house lately! Chris has a fire under his bum for renovations, and we’ve got half the upstairs re-floored. He’s hoping to renovate the kitchen in the next two months, and redo the flooring and repaint in the office and our master bedroom as well. Then we’ll decide to either list the house and aim for something bigger (there are definite downsides to rooming a one year old with a four year old, let me tell you.  Most of them between 7pm and 7am.) outside of the city (Chris could use some acreage to keep his work stuff so he doesn’t have to rent space.) or option b, live in the house until spring 2013 and list it then. Either option sounds exciting to me! And busy. We’ll be DIYing most of the way!