Sharp

It’s Spring. Spring always makes me want to clean, something that I wish would affect my husband as well…

I think it must just be that lovely fresh air. There is just something about it that makes you want to rejuvenate your whole life. Starting with your house.  Mostly your bathroom.

And so that’s where I started yesterday. Well, I initially started in Home Depot, with a gift card, the Little man, a shopping cart, a desire to teach him how to say ‘Awesome!!!” and a complete and total lack of shame.

A baby makes people do your bidding. And climb ladders. And give you stickers.

$200 later, I emerged with several stickers, a can of ‘Blueberry patch’ paint for my bathroom, a new ceiling fan that was tres expensive and new window blinds for my bathroom.

And this is where the story gets good.

It involves me, V, 3 different sized screwdrivers, the top floor of my townhouse and my eagerness to get started on my rejuvenation project.

I was pretty sure that he would entertain himself with his toys while I fussed in the bathroom. And he did for a short period of time. And then got bored and climbed into the bathtub. Happily I was working right above him, I was attempting to removing the old crappy blinds.  This room contained the only crap blind remaining from the previous owners. The only crap blind they didn’t take.

I got stuck on a stripped screw (teehee~), I guess I just physically don’t have the strength to get that mother out of the wall. But I thought I did. And I certainly made quite an effort.

Such an effort, in fact, that my feet got sweaty and slipped on the porcelain tub, which made me hip-check the wall which, in turn, dislodged part of my towel rack…

Those hips of mine are so sharp that they popped a wall fixture right out of its socket.

There is now a hole in my wall.

This was a bit of a shock. I was looking to do some renovating, but not quite as soon as this. I am holding off on any home improvements until my father-in-law sets up camp on my second floor…

Watch out. I’ve got some sharp poppers.

Suck it up, Mummy

How did November suck so fast?

I had high hopes for it. REALLY high ones, especially considering that October was the month of the plague in our little family. I was really over it all. Sick husband. Sick little boy. Projectile vomiting. High fevers. Lethargy. Do I need to go on? Are you getting the picture? Just skip back a few posts and you will be able to read all about it.

So as I got home today, my father-in-law was outside with V playing. I parked, scooped up that little Man and got the down low on how V had behaved for Pop-Pop and if anything was going on in daycare that I needed to know about.

Last week there was a confirmed case of Hand Foot and Mouth disease. They sent home a handy little info sheet, all about the disease and some ways of combating it. There is no cure. It is just a virus that runs its course and is also fairly common in care facilities with small children. Everything goes into the mouth and everything comes out of the mouth and goes onto everything else.

I was pleased that they had let us know, but thought nothing further about it. My son couldn’t possibly get something like that. Only dirty people do (that thought might have been lurking somewhere in the back of my mind…. it didn’t surface…just saying it was there…).

I clearly must have pissed someone off with that deeply hidden thought as not only is it Monday, but V has a blister inside his bottom lip. And a bit of a rash on his bum. That rash could be anything though. But Day-Care seems pretty sure that is what it is. You know, with all of their medical licenses and stuff.

I’ll be making my weekly call to the pediatrician tomorrow morning.

Read all about what we are going through HERE

I will be trying to suck it up while you are doing that…. (I am a big girl. I can handle this…again…still….forever…)

xoxo a.m.

Tell me

Friday saw Little Man and I at the Doctor’s office for his 15 month check. 28 1/4 lbs. 31 1/2 inches….Big boy.

And fungal rash on the ‘extremities’. And we officially need an epi-pen for his peanut allergy. And have been instructed to carry Benadryl as a ‘just in case’ measure.

So just another day over here….

Of course we had our regular round of shots as well. I am a pro-shot mama. Unlike my lovely Canadian sisters, I have never had the luxury of 1 year of maternity leave and have needed full-time daycare since he was 10 weeks old. Hence the pro-shot life-style… Low grade fever last night and a full on crank-funk since Friday. Comes with the territory 🙂 Yay!

And that has been combined with a lovely new experience. An experience that I am hoping that is a new faze?! And I am hoping that mums out there will share and shed some light on this.

V is currently embroiled in this faze of “Mummy, I don’t like this food… I think I will shake my head ‘no’ and then spit it out”.

And that is all he has been doing since Friday. Putting things in his mouth, shaking his head no and either spitting it out or removing it with his hands. And then giving it to the dog. The dog has been so well fed for the last few days. Lucky dog!

The first day that this happened, I attributed it to the shots. Immunizations always come with a wee side-effect…low grade fever, irritableness , cranky pants, fuss faces….etc…

But this is the first time that super non-eating has been involved. Which makes me wonder if it is just age related instead.

In spite of all of the yummy things I have made him:

*Gluten-free turkey and cheese melty sandwiches

*Wheat-free raspberry pancakes

*Veggie patties with sauteed zucchini, mushrooms and fresh cherry tomatoes

*Fresh mozzarella cheese, cucumber and a assortment of fresh veggies

Everything enters the mouth and then exits it at a fast pace. Mostly on the floor, mostly eaten by the dog and mostly accompanied by head shaking…

The last 3 days have been mostly ‘sippy cup’ days. This is frustrating. Please God, let this be a ‘stage.’

Is it a stage at 15 months? The ‘non-eating’, I hate everything, back-bending screaming if you try to feed me anything stage?

Really? Please? Tell me….

Pee

Unflattering picture of me covered in pee. Thanks Mike!!

Just a quickie about a lovely incident that happened this weekend.

A post gym incident. One that might involve baby bodily fluid(s).

Home from the gym, I puttered around for a little while. V was down for a nap, always the best time to get things done, right? To get a lot of things done. As maybe things as possible, in fact. So still in my gym clothes, I manic-cleaned and organized things. And then sat down for 2 minutes.

Right on cue, V began wailing, as he often does on waking up from his nap. Sometimes it is just heart-wrenching to hear. Why is he so upset? No idea. But he is. Very. About 75% of the time post-nap. I opened his bedroom door to find him sitting in the middle of his crib eyes shut, crying, tears everywhere.

I scooped him up, cuddled and made some shooshing noises and off we went to the kitchen to get a bottle. The crying did not stop, however.

If anything it got progressively loudly. Now this was unusual.

Bottle was pushed away with extra force and the motion was punctuated by a louder (if possible) and more upset sounding wail.

Oh my.

And unfortunately this sort of thing kind of makes me laugh, so laughing a bit, we head over to an armchair with bottle held hidden behind back. Perhaps we need more of a cosy cuddle, I think. And settle down with him by the living-room window, in the armchair. His little legs are tucked around my waist (on either side) and his arms are hugging me. We are face to face, torso to torso and he is still crying.

A lot of back patting and rubbing commences, as does sweet shushing and some discussions about how maybe we might want some bottle now? (the answer was no, by the way… quite firmly too).

I love holding him like this, even if he is crying, so despite that I am enjoying myself immensely.

And then I feel something. Something warm. I takes me a minute to realize what it is.

While the answer may be clear to some of you (knowing my child and his escapades), it wasn’t to me immediately. Reason being that for about 5 seconds there, I swear I was peeing on my own armchair. Really.

Actually, what was happening is that with the position that V and I were in, he was peeing on me, but it was aimed pretty much right where I would be doing the same thing. He was peeing on me where I pee. Which made it feel like I was peeing.

WHICH I WAS NOT.

And then he stopped crying.

Oh, and he was wearing a diaper. A diaper put on by his father. Might as well have been naked.

Up I got. Slowly. I was trying to not let pee drip everywhere. Yelling for M the whole time. While I pidgeon-toed walked to V’s bedroom with him clutched in my arms and ‘not my own pee’ dripping down my thighs, M cleaned the chair and then ran after me with the camera taking pictures of the 2 of us and laughing uncontrollably.

Bastard.

I hope sometimes that I am not the only one having this bodily fluid experiences. Please? And also, I hope that someone else also has a ridiculous husband like mine. I can’t possibly be the only one…

Toilet

Pretty much what my afternoon looked like, just with pants on instead...

Things I did this afternoon:

Wrestled my 14 month old son away from the toilet.

Really.

He just ‘discovered’ it this afternoon and learned how to lift the lid. This was cute the first time. Then, as he lifted and dropped it repeatedly, it suddenly was not entertaining.

And then, as I looked over at him and saw that he had a whole arm down the toilet (I swear I looked away for about 1/2 a second), it was at the lowest level on non-entertaining. Right at the very bottom level.

So as I rush over to the toilet and drag that little arm out of it (and then soap that arm up, scrub it to an inch of it’s life and dry it on a super clean towel), I thought things like “M! Where are you!!” and “Must shut all bathroom doors from now on”.

As I dragged him (metaphorically speaking) out of the bathroom, he threw a full-on fit.

Kicking, screaming, wailing, back-arching etc. I could hardly believe that this huge of a fuss was being throw over the toilet. The toilet!! I mean really!!

But regardless, it was a huge fit.

As I was carrying him away from the toilet (laughing), I wondered what would be the next step in this little impish boy’s life. Approximately 3 hours later I learned that it would be actual steps…

V took his first unsupported steps this evening. At first from the middle of our walk-in closet to Daddy (as that was where they were playing). He did that a couple of times while M and I stared in disbelief.

Then, once I got in the closet with him, M encouraged him to walk towards me. He took 4 steps to me, before falling into my arms… Did I win the lottery? I just might have….

The lottery of love, that is…. it was all rather overwhelming…

M and I just looked at each other… our days are numbered…

Shower

Me, earlier during my epic Monday shower....

Its been a while since I posted about poop.

Happily , our household has been free of poop-related incidences. For a while there they were happening a little too frequently for my taste.

Don’t fret my dears…. I am here with a brand-new one for your reading pleasure!!

Mondays can be long days. This Monday felt extra long. Hectic work, plus M’s teacher ‘back-to-school’ week, plus a sudden disappearance of our regular daycare resulting in Pop-Pop and V spending a lot of time together. PLUS an earlier rising time, minus my glorious 8 weeks of sleeping in until 6:30 (practically unheard of!). Plus the fact that it is Monday.

This resulted in me feeling like I forgot to have a shower by the end of the day. Isn’t that just the worst feeling ever? The humidity doesn’t help either. So as I am driving the Expressway home I am contemplating a dilemma…shower or Gym, shower or Gym, steamy long hot shower with coconut body wash and clean hair or Gym.

The shower won. It was delicious…. out I came, clean hair, body delicately scented like coconut and so so so very clean.

That shower put me in the best mood. M and V came home from picking up dinner stuff and Little Man was scooped up into my arms, snuggled within an inch of his life and then fed some yummy dinner. Tonight’s meal: Oven Gold Boars Head turkey, Organic cheddar cheese, sauteed zucchini and mushrooms and sweet potato french fries. Fresh watermelon for dessert.

Post dinner, off we headed to the bedroom for a strip-down and a plunk in the tub. Who knew that my leisurely evening was about to come to an end!

I played games with V as I stripped him down to his diaper on the changing table. An aroma arose from the groinal region that immediately exited the room and headed for the kitchen to assault M’s nostrils. “Jame!! What’s that smell?!?! It’s awful!!” he shouted from the other room.

“M! V’s got a present for you!! But you have to come in here to get it!” I shouted back…. he did not fall for that old trick… neither would I.

I opened that diaper and encountered the foulest thing ever seen in a  diaper in the history of Mankind. Also the foulest smelling thing. Foul.

Not to V though!! He shrieked with delight and happily stuffed both hands down that diaper and went straight for the bits. Which were covered. That’s how awful this diaper was. It was a full-on “Strap your child to the changing table and use both hands” kind of clean up.

Oh. My. God. His hands were covered in poo and he was laughing hysterically. He was having the best time ever!! I, on the other hand, was freaking out. And screaming things like “NANANANANANANA! V!!!!!! Nonononono! Oh my god, oh god…. oh holy god….etc etc”.

M, was happily (pretend) oblivious in the kitchen. He states he heard nothing. Bastard.

Anyways, off we went at arms length to the tub. The one time I didn’t want to cradle that little bum while I walk him naked as a jaybird (him, not me) over to the tub and dunk him in. I did not want to touch that part of his body.

What follows was fastest bath in the history of the human race. It might have even been faster than the previous fastest bath (that one that followed the infamous ‘poop in tub’ incident).

Bedtime followed at an even faster pace!

xoxo a.m.

Sunday

Another Sunday night poop story….. I know that you are very excited. I can feel it.

Poop is a ‘regular’ event over here. A fantastical event at least once a week that usually leads to extra cleaning on my part……

Today started with M offering to change a dirty diaper. What you say?? What kind of crazy thing is this?? What kind of parallel world are we living in? Men offering to change diapers without being provoked? Lord only knows what this is about, but I happily accept any and all offers…

So offer accepted, off they went to the changing table to sort things out.

We have to give V something to occupy himself while he is getting changed. Otherwise, he will flip himself over onto his tummy and smear poo everywhere. This we know from lots of experience… LOTS of experience.

Daddy handed V a book to look at while he unstrapped that nasty diaper.

Oh, that poor poor book….

That book was grabbed with such enthusiasm, waved all around and then suddenly (and without any warning) was abruptly shoved down the front of his diaper (suddenly and abruptly, in case you didn’t get that) A diaper that was quite well filled.

A surprised loud laugh is what brought me into the room. M turned to me, laughing, and handed me a book.

The book.

The book that was covered in poop.

‘Oh, thank you! My favorite thing!”

A book that I chose to not clean and, instead, deposit in the garbage.

The West Coast in me screaming out that I could have salvaged it instead of throwing it out. But, lets face it, it was not salvageable. There is no way that I would have been able to clean that book up and look at it other than the book that V poop-smeared.

I am sure that the smell would have clung. Or I would have imagined the smell clinging to it. And my fingers as I was holding it. And to V’s hands and face, as that’s where books usually go. I do not want to be the poop family. Really.

And so, it was hand-carried (finger-tips only) to the garbage and dutifully deposited into our trash.

Sorry book. I can no-longer accept you in our household once you have been smeared. Your memory as one of V’s first books will live on in our minds…..

You will forever be remembered as “The book covered in poop”. We will never forget you…. and neither will V’s future girlfriends…

Holy!

Guacamole!!

Note to self:

Never let your child feed himself avocado. This is what I did last night and at the end of the meal, I wondered what on earth I was thinking…

I am trying to encourage spoon feeding right now. Although most of the food that he is eating right now is pick-up-able, sometimes I throw in a few things that are of a spoon fed nature. Avocados, rice pudding (Cosy Shack) a few other things like that. He just doesn’t have the dexterity quite yet.

Most of the things that I feed him are things that I think are yummy too. As a result, he is a huge papaya fan. Papaya is pretty much my favorite fruit ever and it is perfect for babies/toddlers. I loved feeding him guava, mango and papaya puree when he was a wee wee thing. These are jarred fruits that you would never ever ever find in Canada.

So, if I like it, I think that he should…. seems logical. And for the most part I am right. Avocado took a while. The first few times, it reached a level of hatred that fruit/veg has rarely reached. Suddenly though, there was an abrupt turn around. As long as its mashed, in a guacamole-like state, then it is all good.

Guacamole involves me feeding it to him. Which involves perhaps 2 bites that he allows me to feed him, him then grabbing the spoon, me grabbing another spoon and then us fighting over whose spoon goes in his mouth. So as I am trying to encourage independence and learning, I try to encourage him to experiment with his spoon.

Mostly this involves him waving it around, bits of food flying everywhere (and Chewie in ecstatic delight, dashing around in circles, looping through the highchair legs trying to catch all those airborne things).

Last night it involved a bowl with a suction-cup on the base of it that I attached to his highchair tray. And a spoon. And a bib. And me regretting that I let him eat dinner in a white tee-shirt. About 3 minutes later avocado was everywhere. all under his bib. All over his bib. All over his face, up his nose, on the back of his ears and what wasn’t in these places was firmly stuffed both behind and into the buckle of the straps on his highchair.

I had to carry him at arms length to the bathtub, avocado and corn dripping off of him (and the dog following closely behind).

That tub-scrub was heavy-duty. And the water was greenish at the end of that scrub….

This will probably not be a self-feeding even for a while, my kitchen needs time to recover! (for really interesting ideas for baby meals, please check out this neat site!)

xoxo a.m.

Toys

As I look over at my exhausted Chihuahua as he sleeps in his cat-bed, I notice a plastic cow in front of his little bed. My house has suddenly become over-run with toys and I am not sure how this happened.

And when did our dog get so tired? Perhaps when V started following him around waving his dog toys in front of his little dog face? Maybe then….

There was a time, I think it was when V didn’t wiggle around as much. But, regardless, there was a time when we had about 4 toys. And they didn’t make any noise. Then my bf gifted us with a few extra things from her house, which we thought was great!After all, we thought, we have NO toys. We NEED toys.

And then a little while later, Target opened a Super-Target about 1 block from my office. Once or twice a week I would head over there with the pretense of buying ‘groceries’, that really means formula, diapers, clearance items and little toys. I think I ‘little toy’-ed us to death.

Oh, and then it was Christmas, and then it was Easter, and then some family visited. And then V turned one. And then I went to Ross every week for 4 months and bought him books (as he didn’t have any books). Now he has a lot of books. And pj’s.

And this last week, when V unveiled his new talent of A) removing all items from any shelf within reach (oh how great that I decided to put  half of his books on a shelf in our living room!) and 2) removing any toys one by one from any storage container that they are placed in and C) screaming when you return them to said storage location….. that is when I decided that we have too many toys. And things. And need a separate room for all of these things.

And so we are buying a house.

Not that we have found a house to buy, but we are looking seriously and buying seriously too…. (we do everything very seriously. We are frighteningly serious people. And also frighteningly sarcastic as well) before the end of the year. And it’s all because of V. And his toys. Not really.

It is because of me. Well, the book situation is anyways…. I can’t resist. I still think books are the best toys ever. For anyone really. I think it is the nicest present to give someone, well, only if you know them fairly well….. and they have time to read. So maybe don’t work full-time and have 2 kids under 5…..

So little toys are everywhere over here. Plastic cows, Elmo books, wagons, numerous plastic hammers (w/sound effects), over-sized cars, many things with sound effects etc etc etc….

We are on our way to drowning over here…… Help!

For help, click here

Burgers, of a sort….

M is watching some crazy FoodTv show right now…. full of sandwiches stuffed with french-fries and coleslaw. These sandwiches are seriously like 6 to 8 inches high. How you can even take a bite is beyond me. Also why you would want to is clearly over my head as well….

M just mentioned another sandwich he had heard of that is also over the top crazy…..
I think is must be some sort of ‘man’ thing to find this sort of thing attractive. A Crispy Cream Burger?!? Why!

But regardless, it exists….

Watching these outrageous shows that showcase some unbelievable meals ( 5 pound meat pizza, 6 pattie-burgers, omelets the size of a pizza….) its really no wonder that a huge majority of the USA is obese. Sometimes when I see such obvious contributing factors to poor health, I just can’t help but think out loud that it’s no wonder…. even though I am sure a good portion of the population are not eating things like this…. Well, I hope anyways…

Must be my clean living Canadian genes coming into play, but I am so revolted by such displays of unhealthiness. Makes me squirm and shudder…. and long for huge glasses of clean water and large delicious salads and gorgeous pieces of fresh fruit….