Frogs

I kicked a frog yesterday morning.

I think it was a shock to both of us.

I honestly wasn’t expecting him to land on my foot mid-trot and kick him off. Or do a squeamish dance in the middle of the running path.

OR repeat that exact same thing 30 seconds later. Ugh!!

Oh my lord. And with every step I took after that, it was frogs a plenty and I feel like I danced and twirled all through my run. Which, honestly, wouldn’t have been that bad but I was aiming for more hardcore stamina as opposed to Dancey McDanceathon. At 5:50 am.

And so this morning, I had the Plague of frogs on my mind when I headed off this early a.m. to get my run on. Ever since my Friday 5k, I am loving hitting the pavement. LOVE IT. As in, might divorce Edward and have a handfasting ceremony with the pavement in front of my house, wherein I start my running.

Anyways, this morning there were no frogs. There were also no birds, ducks, dogs, deer or spider webs (that I always seem to run through with my mouth open. Ick.)

Compared to the virtual rain of frogs from yesterday, the complete dearth of frogs this morning was oppositely bizarre.

I cannot help but think that this week is waxing and waning in terms of the number of frogs I have seen. And tomorrow I am anticipating to see none. Since I am not going running at all.

Hm. Did I disappoint you?

Mummy needs a rest, especially since I literally had a breakdown when I got home this evening and was banished to a hot tub relaxathon with a glass of wine by my husband. With strict instructions to not come out.

Best banishment ever.

Love you Edward…

xoxoxo a.m.

(Love you frogs too….)

Mermaids

V, Shell and boogs

Oh gosh, how I love surprises. And M knows that painfully obvious secret about me. And so? We took a road trip, with a secret destination…

We hit up the Tampa Aquarium. Something that I had been interested in going to since V discovered fish. I thought he’d get a kick out of it. Especially since all fish are ‘Nemo’.

Let me just say, it was a total disappointment. Total tourist central, which I guess isn’t surprising since it is located right next to the Cruise Ship terminal. So that was one huge point against. And then? Well, then it was just plain ol’ bad.

Bad taste, bad exhibits, sad gators and well, just bad. BAD.

It was like a sad zoo for fish. Which I guess is exactly what an aquarium is. God. Awful. And then they tacked a ‘water park’ on the end of it. Ugh.

And then the whole purpose of our trip because clear. The Weeki Watchee Mermaids were there for the weekend.

Say whaaa?!

Oh thats right!! You heard me! My Florida dream come true. For years I have wanted to see them perform, and now I didn’t have to pay a ridiculous amount of money and drive all over Florida to see them.

Hurray!!

And then Boo!! It was a special showing for 15 minutes only and the exhibit was overly full. Crap. V didn’t care, there were things to crawl over and in and stuff to point and touch. He didn’t care about no stinking mermaids.

We wandered and laughed all over the exhibit. It was just so darn bad. And then just before we were about to leave, I found one last corner unexplored. And guess what? In that unexplored area was the tank where the mermaids were performing.

Thank you Gods!!! Thank you!! One more thing off the list of tacky stuff to do in Florida.

And they were so gorgeously tacky, kind of slutty and all sorts of bad. Mummy Like.

But ladies, I love you. Thank you for making my afternoon. V liked ‘Nemo’. M liked the part of the exhibit that had fake smoke.

Those mermaids saved it. For me anyways. Not sure about anyone else.

Although judging from the person behind me while V and I were looking at turtles. “I’m gonna get a picture of this damn turtle if it’s the last thing I do. We spent $80 damn dollars on admission and if I want damn picture of a turtle, I’ll get one! And then we’ll leave!”

I don’t think the mermaids saved it for her…

xoxo a.m.

p.s.: they totally did it for me… 😉

Surprise!

Cocoa Beach

I was up nice and early with the V-Diddy Sunday morning. And to my surprise, so was Daddy! Usually I let him sleep as he works his second job over Friday and Saturday nights and I want him to get some actual rest on the weekends.

For some reason he was up. I was soon to find out why…. Apparently he had planned that we were hitting up the beach, which was the best plan ever. Haven’t been to the beach in forever and a day.

We live about 45 minutes or so from the East Coast of Florida, which puts us (I guess) in the neighbourhood of Cocoa Beach. We prefer to go elsewhere though. Cocoa is just to dang crowded. And touristy. Last year we found this amazing beach about 4 or 5 miles south of Cocoa, adjacent to the Army base there. Pretty empty, public washrooms, totally pristine. Perfect!

Unbeknownest to me, M had other plans. He had found a ‘historic beach’ near the Space Center and was heading there instead.

I love driving near the Space Center. After years of seeing shuttle launches on the tv and internet, it is pretty amazing to live so near to where it’s all taking place. We drove past the Space Center with M saying “I’m pretty sure I get in there for free with my teacher discount”

Holla!! We are so going.

We were discussing this so animatedly that we (I guess) weren’t paying that much attention to where we were going.

All of a sudden there was a large gun in my line of sight. As I panned up, I encountered a huge name tag that said ‘Woody’.

Woody is the hardiest, oldest soldier with the most no-nonsense tone of voice, kind of like Al Pacino  in Scent of a Woman (except perhaps a little more sassy), that I have ever met. Outside of a film, that is…

So hey, guess what?

We were apparently trying to drive right onto Kennedy Space Center’s grounds. Did you know you can’t do that? Yup. You can’t.

What you can do, however, is get very detailed directions to the nearest beaches (clearly this is something that has happened before  ). And then you can learn that the ‘historic’ beach you are looking for is located behind Bunker 33 and hasn’t been open to the public in about 50 years.

Ha!!

Holy crap, did we ever laugh. Woody laughed briefly and roughly , as if it wasn’t something that he had done recently… if ever.

Thanks Woody for setting us straight. And thanks GPS for taking us to a ‘historic’ beach (what even is that?!). And thanks husband, for having the best idea ever on an early Sunday morning.

Here’s a few pictures of the Little Man at the beach. I wish I had been able to catch him saying the word ‘beach’. It does, as I am sure you parents can imagine, sound a little different coming from his mouth.

But it’s the cutest thing ever to hear the chant of “Cocoa Beach Cocoa Beach” coming from the back seat. “Cocoa Beach” interspersed with “Water? Beach! Water!”

xoxo j

Bastard blood

Sadly I am not allergic to any food.

While for some people this might be a wonderful thing to hear, for me? Not so great… I was totally expecting to find out that I had a wheat allergy too (just like V) and possibly some other hidden allergies lurking around in my system.

Bastard blood of mine!! I was expecting a lot out of you!

You were supposed to be the answer… I am looking for intel into V’s allergies. Any insight into the allergy situation would be awesome and currently I am focusing on me. As soon as I have made myself run the gamut, I’ll be putting M through his paces. Only fair!!

And so today I went through the intradermal allergy testing. Another interesting process. Small amounts of the allergen are injected just under the skin. In my case, 64 times. We then wait for everything to cook for 15 minutes and then measure the reaction on my skin.

Ding! 15 minutes later, we had our results. And they weren’t anything that exciting. Nothing earth-shattering or anything.

Funnily enough I am allergic to Maple tree pollen. And am Canadian. How disappointing. And so I now live in Florida and apparently am allergic to Orange tree pollen as well. What. The. Hell.

It make me kind of laugh though. From the land of the Maple tree to the land of the Orange tree, she is allergic to it all.

And allergic to dust-mites, a few other trees and 7 different types of mold. 7 for gods sake. Which, in hind sight, isn’t that surprising since I have a childhood allergy to penicillin that I apparently have passed on to V.

So while I didn’t learn that much about V’s particular food allergies and where they might have originated from, I did learn some interesting things about my own. Especially considering that I wasn’t aware of any of them.

So it looks like 2010 is going to start off, for me anyways, with an exciting ‘mold elimination’ diet. 3 months of a diet which basically has me eating nothing, as apparently all food is on this list, most condiments, all things pickled and vinegared  and lots of tomatoes. Oh, and cheese. And most heartbreakingly of all….. wine….

Oh lord how will I survive without cheese and wine.

I am totally f’d in the a.

Fever, again

Mummy? Change me. NOW.

As I type this, my eyes are closed. There is a glass of Merlot in front of me. Julia and Julie is playing on the Blue Ray. V is sleeping. I just finished sauteing some scallops for my salad.

Key phase in above ramble? ‘V is sleeping’

3 days of super sick baby, Mummy has now reached an insane level of ‘over it’.

Except, Mummy can’t be. Not like Mummy is when Daddy gets sick. Nope, with Little Booboo, Mummy is always on.

Wednesday morning was a low fever, Wednesday evening it was 100 degrees. Thursday early morning it was 101. I stayed home that day with the sick Little Man. It was awful. Fevers scare the crap out of me.

Thursday was a ‘Motrin’ day. And a ‘Tylenol’ day. And a “Mummy, I need a cuddle’ day. And that is how I always know my V isn’t feeling well, when he searches out Mummy’s lap and snuggles down.

Thursday afternoon was 102 and Friday morning was 103.2.

POINT TWO! POINT FRIGGIN’ TWO!

Jesus Christ, how can anyone’s heart take this sort of thing?

And then I had to go to work.

And M took him to the Doctor. Bad sinus infection and a molar coming in. How Dr E even managed to get into his mouth to look, I have no idea. I can barely get a toothbrush in there. One time I had to remove something(s) (paper, pennies, dog kibble, pieces of wood, dirt from the floor etc) and I swear he almost severed my finger. Baby teeth are sharp things.

So apparently those 2 things are enough to raise ones body temperature.

Sooooo… amoxicillin, Motrin with alternating doses of Tylenol, decongestant cough/nasal drops, Singulair tablets AND Pulmacort nebulizer treatments.

Last night, while I was dosing the Little Man, I couldn’t believe how many things I was administering to him. Basically 5 (or 6 depending on how the day is going)  different things. Seems like an awful lot for one small body.

Something which was rather apparent to me this morning. Let me fill you in on last night.

Last night, post-bath, as I went to diaper and pj the Little Man I discovered there WERE NO DIAPERS upstairs in his bedroom. Which actually meant that there were no diapers in the upstairs. Which meant there were no diapers in the house. Carrying a naked baby downstairs, I rifled through the diaper bag and found 2.

Oh thank god. One for tonight and one for the morning. And then M would be up (from his double shift) and I could do a run to the drug store and it would all be ok.

So this morning, at 7:30, it was not. My morning started with some hard-core grunting. Oh say it ain’t so. Say it ain’t so!! But the smell said otherwise. Of course, being that the last diaper in the house had just been put on a small bum, it only made sense to use it. Apparently immediately.

Oh sick child of mine, we now have an endless supply of diapers and you can fill them to your hearts content. Which you will. I know you too well.

Virtuous

Today I took a vitamin.

I cannot even begin to share my joy with you that I finally remembered to. I bought them about 2 weeks ago and they have been sitting forlornly on my counter, giving me puppy-dog eyes whenever I walked in and out of the kitchen.

This evening, as I walked through the kitchen for the millionth time, I finally decided to open the package.

Horse pills, oh glorious horse pills. These were some seriously big multi-vitamins. And a sort of concentrated urine colour too. Not the most appetizing of appearances.

I choked that mother down and am feeling quite virtuous. I am a healthy mo-fo. (Or at least taking some baby-steps in that direction).

In my quest for other things that are virtuous, I found a few…

This quite interesting blog about thrifty living. And some cute tricks for putting together inexpensive decorations for the house…

I also discovered this wonderful book. ‘Virtuous Vampire’? How intriguing! To quote one reviewer “I loved The Virtuous Vampire. The heat and attraction between Abbie and the Alpha Male Lucan was hot and sexy.”

Hot and sexy. And apparently virtuous as well.

The more I googled about virtuous, the more it became clear that swallowing that vitamin maybe didn’t bring me quite to the level of virtuosity as these other women I ran into while surfing. A lot of Christians. Not that that is a bad thing, I was just surprised by the amount of passion for virtuous living and God. And breastfeeding.

I probably am not as virtuous as all these people espousing their love for God, clean and proper living (and behavior)… and, of course, breastfeeding.

Apparently I am on a different ‘virtuous life-style’ path. It’s a ‘eat lots of citrus fruit, drink decaf tea, takes horse-pill-sized vitamins,  exercise almost, daily drink lots of water’ life path. With yoga. And no breastfeeding.

To each his own, eh? (that’s a bit of Canadian for ya’ll… and that’s a bit of the South too).

Off to finish my decaf and crawl into bed to virtuously write my Xmas cards…

xoxo a.m.

Rejuvenation

Sometimes it's easy to forget the better things in life...

AtlanticMama rejuvenation project is currently underway.

And I don’t mean just the blog, which is an ongoing work in progress. I am in the process of trying to breath some life back into my ‘life’.

Not that Life sucks right now, or anything like that. And certainly not that life with M is bad or I am not enjoying motherhood. But more of an ‘I am not happy with myself’ sort of thing. Funnily enough, it was about this same time last year, that I was struck with similar feelings. Except at that time, they manifested more as anxiety related-heart palpitation-ish-I think I’ll go to the ER because my heart is racing so much I think I am going to pass out and the way it’s beating is freaking me out.

One ER visit, one follow-up trip to my family doctor, several trips to a cardiologist, one stress test and some medication later, I felt somewhat normal. And rather freaked out. I know it was a combination post-pregnancy plus stress plus sleep-deprivation and I am sure there were a few more factors in there too (those damn socks of M’s). As much as I thought I was handling it, I think I was internalizing it a little too much and the end result was the ER.

For the last few weeks I’ve been feeling it building. Not so much the heart palpitations, but the feelings. The dissatisfaction. I felt like I was watching myself and disapproving of everything. My weak excuses for not hitting up the YMCA. I have a mandatory membership! I have no reason not to go. And this stupid holiday season with all of the yummy things. And my apparent complete lack of self-control when it comes to these delicious seasonal treats.

Lets just say this path felt familiar. And I am determined to not get too far down it again.

Hence my rejuvenation. My pulling things back in line. My focus. My dedication.

Saturday night I gave myself a facial. Holy crap did I need it. It was so relaxing for the 10 minutes that peel mask sat on my skin. And then I ruined the balance by having 2 more glasses of wine and staying up until 1 am. Who am I! Certainly not 25 years old again, living in Japan. What was I thinking. Clearly not anything about how V likes to get up super early. Parenting fail.

Sunday started off strong with a lovely walk in the park and then a trip to yoga. However, ruined again by the stuff-fest hosted by yours truly and staying up too late. And then arguing with M about nothing for a long period of time.

Balance fail.

Today was a better day, so based on that, it is the official start of my Rejuvenation.

No sweets all day. Check!

Healthy lunch. Check!

No caffeine. Check!

Adorably greeted by Little Man at daycare with a lovely picture he painted himself. Check!

Kickboxing class. Check and check!

Parenting and balance win!

Here is a really sweet (as in sensitive and delightful) website about yoga, pregnancy and healthy lifestyles.  All of those preg ladies out there, embrace the yoga. Your body will thank you.

(important health message for the masses. Check!)

xoxo a.m.

Yoga

Finally over my nasty cold, I headed back to the YMCA tonight with firm intentions to become a regular. All of this is part of my plan of  ‘Atlantic rejuvenation’.

Mumma needs a boost, a jolt, a kick in the ass. Something to shake up my life, push me over the edge a bit. As if my husband doesn’t push me over the edge enough…those damn socks of his (I found one in the street this evening), and 2 litres of gravy?! Well, I won’t get into further details about THAT. Let’s just say its 5 days later and is still residing in my fridge. Feeling a little frightened about what it has become. 3 days ago, the last time I lifted the wrap and scooped some out, it was jello-like. Lord know where we are now…

I digress.

Yoga tonight was different than yoga previously. There is no Bikram over on this side of town, its just plain ol’ regular yoga. Something I haven’t done since around 2005. With my Mum. In Canada.

The class was low-lit, candles on the floor, kinda romantic and relaxing. With ‘hippie’ music playing (that’s what M calls it). There was no sweating. There was no barked orders and sharp clapping to signify position change. And also , she didn’t talk that much.

It was an adjustment for me. I guess I had become used to my Bikram instructors and their style of class. This new gentle style was certainly different.

I enjoyed it though and I feel so long and tall. And my back feels supple and relaxed.

Now that I have broken the ice with the Y, spinning class will be next. Never done it, but walked past a class this evening and was entranced by the sweating and barked orders. Um, clearly I need to be shouted at and to sweat my face off.

Care to hazard a guess about what this says about me? Need to be in a controlled environment. The only thing that would make it better would be for the class to come with a handbook and maybe some tedious paperwork to fill out.

Then I’d be in heaven.

Gravy

Maybe that's what I should dowith the left-overs...

No more verbal diarrhea about, well, garbage. Part of my New Years resolution.(see last nights post for garbage)

Plus do more yoga, blog more about interesting things that attract more readers, potty train V, run a 10 k, spend more time with M, lose this damned baby weight, contemplate a Masters Degree, maybe get pregnant… Clearly I am setting my sights high… nothing wrong with that!

I am just getting a head start, preparing the list of ‘resolutions’ a little early. We all know how much I like to make lists.

Can I just complain about the baby weight for a minute?

It’s a son of a bitch to lose.

SON OF A BITCH. Period.

Before there is even a conversation about baby #2, this weight needs to be so last week. Let’s ignore the fact that I have been talking about another baby for EVER. And focus instead on how I am going to find time to shake this crap off.

Already I am back on the super diet. And am about to hop back aboard the exercise train. I had deboarded due to some antibiotics that I was taking that made me feel a bit funny. But that kicked that nasty cold to the curb, so I was happy to sacrifice a week of exercise for that.

So welcome back yoga!! My first class will be this Thursday night. Now it won’t be Bikram yoga. The studio is now just too far away from my house, plus now that my home owners association fees include a membership to the YMCA I have no argument to not go to ‘free’ yoga. I don’t care, I just need yoga.

I really feel like it brings some measure of balance into my life. Calms me down. Makes me slightly less spastic.

So I eagerly await Thursday night’s appearance.

And on a completely different topic, my husband made  2 litres of gravy last night.

Why you ask? Not too sure.

We were eatting left over roast from Sunday night and I asked him to go and get some dry gravy mix. Gravy in a jar creeps me out.

Anyways, he came home with 2 packages and proceeded to spend about 30 minutes sauteing mushrooms in red wine, mixing the powder and water together in a separate bowl and then slowly added it to the boiling water on the stove. You would not even believe the mess in the kitchen. It looked like he had been cooking a la Julia Child.

It was gravy!!

Anyways, if you need some, just let me know. I have about 2 litres in the fridge and am happy to share it with you…

xoxo a.m. (a gravy-filled atlanticmama)

Sparkle!

Please bless this home with sparkles and multi-colour shoes.

Things we do to our children.

For example, the things I do to mine.

Friday was a short day for me. Christmas party at work, a luncheon with ‘games’ and in my excitement at leaving work early I planned just a few extra things. Things that, in retrospect, should have just been ‘fit in’ on their own day. I was a wee bit determined though and we all know what that’s like.

Xmas photos at the mall (in the tropical thunder-storm that hit the area?! Sure! No problem!). Late night trip to the grocery store (late being 7 pm). Dinner at 7:30. Bed at 8 pm. This is all very unusual for all members in my household, especially the dog. I think he relies on routine and gets confused when things don’t go according to his plans.

I stayed up way later than everyone else.

And thought about things.

About the lady I met in the photo studio last night who exchanged Iphone apps with me. Thanks for ‘Hatch’! Her son was roughly the same age as V and I couldn’t help but notice that she was loosing her hair. She was much older than I am/was/will be.

Whatever that means.

Anyways…

About the photographer that made the most interesting noises I have ever heard in order to gain and keep Little Man’s attention. Good job! I didn’t even know those noises existed! And how do you learn them? And oh, how I don’t want to ever be a photog working at a place like that.

About how crappy driving in the rain is here. It might be the equivalent to driving in the snow on Vancouver Island. Despite the fact that it rains here a lot, no-one still knows how to drive in it. Hence my Island reference. Re: snow.

About how letting Little Man stay up until 8 pm equals me getting to sleep in until 9 am. Not such a bad thing.

Anyways, we got home late. The only thing he wanted to eat was banana and milk. Who am I to argue with him? We were waaaaaay beyond that point. We were at the point of  ‘nobody matters at all’,  least of all Mummy. At least he ate.

And Sunday was the same… but slightly more of ‘Things we do to our children’ and ‘What the hell were we thinking!’.

Both of these topics seem to come up rather often.

We went to Downtown Disney. For those not in Florida, it is a cute area, on Disney property but not attached to any of the parks. Movie theatres, shops, Lego stores, McDonald’s (apparently an essential), it’s all that kind of thing.

It was a no-nap day. Just a light snooze in the car, followed by french fries and chocolate milk (which is the hugest treat ever). V, in his sweater, had the run of the place. And then M had the brilliant idea to see if he liked cotton candy.

Well, he does. And sugar gives him energy despite the lack of nap.

We got back to Hunters Creek around 4 pm. And then home, after a stop at the grocery store around 5 pm. And what did we buy at the store?

A roast. Because on a Sunday night, around 6 pm, this is clearly the perfect thing to slide in the oven. At the time we were discussing it (3:30 pm) it was! And sounded so delicious!

When we got home (5 pm), and put it in the oven (6 pm) it seemed like the beef was a dream. And a stupid dream at that. We had sushi for dinner while the roast cooked.

And we had Roast for dinner tonight. Way to plan!

Things I thought about today…

About how demanding people are. Is it an American thing? Not sure, but the kind of screaming that I face on the telephone is the equivalent to a toddler tantrum. People pout and fight when they don’t get their way. To be honest, it’s rather annoying. I would rather V have a temper tantrum in the middle of a busy street than talk to some guy who can’t understand why his post-nasal drip isn’t cause for National Concern (sometimes you can just hear the capitals).

Or why we can’t see you ‘right now’. Or why you can’t  ‘just come in and wait….. it will only take “5 minutes”‘. Pretty much this is every conversation that I will be having until years end.

About how I missed my BF Shanaenae* today at the office. Naenae, you know I need to see you every day.

It’s moving into that time of the year. Yes, that’s right. It’s Nature’s Menstrual cycle. Everyone gets bitchy. And the closer it gets to Xmas and New Years, the worse it gets for all of us making appointments and doing things of other Nation Concern to random people. Bastards.

How I felt sad that V ran into daycare this morning without a care in the world. I literally was like “Oh. Ok. Um….. Um. I guess I’ll go now…” Meanwhile V is happily playing without a care in the world with another little boy. My feelings were just a little bit hurt. Just a little. *sigh* Ok, a lot.

But miraculously, I felt waaaay better this afternoon when I went and picked him up and he immediately dropped everything he was doing and ran to me. And then clung to my legs.

THAT’S what I want to see!!!! Pure dependency!

All it does is cement that my little man is growing up. And that, probably, I need to have another baby.

Lord, please bless this home with a feminine child.

Mumma needs to buy sparkly shoes for someone…

*Girl, I am only using your Ghetto name for privacy reasons….