A pregnant Christmas ramble…

I’m not really sure how it happened, but Christmas is in 8 days. Originally I had felt a bit panicked as the holiday season approached, what with being an enormous preggo and all. That combined with shopping  is just a pile of no-fun. But as it turns out, there isn’t anything to worry about.

After much conversation, Edward and I are (in a way) opting out of the majority of the hype shopping-wise. Honestly, there isn’t anything that either of us want. And really all I like is presents in my stocking, that’s my favorite.

And plus, what is honestly more fun that watching your child’s face on Christmas morning. Much more rewarding that watching your partners face as they open socks (or whatever awesome techno-giftie you got them this year).

So I low-keyed it, bought V a bunch of Star Wars books. And a few other things as well, it’s hard not to… And Edward is having a hard time resisting the lure of purchasing Star Wars action figures for Vince, especially since Vince is taking to it like a duck to water. Isn’t that funny? He learned about Star Wars 3 weeks ago and practically has memorized every characters name, declared favorites and is thrilled that Daddy and him have a ‘date’ to watch the movie in the next few days…

Total digression, I know, but sometimes a Star Wars digression is worth it. More so when ones child declared to Santa that he wanted a Jabba the Hutt present from Santa and sent Daddy scrambling to eBay to hunt one up since it is not possible to find anything like that 10 days before Christmas. Ha!!

Anyways, so I find myself in a pleasant situation of not needing to do any more shopping. Which is a relief since I don’t want to. I barely mailed cards out this year and feel like a huge holiday slacker. And I don’t care.

I couldn’t have appreciated it any more than today when I woke up WAY too early to the sound of someone crying “I HAVE TO DO A POO!” at some ungodly hour. Preceeded by a coma-like sleep which started last night at about 8:30 when I passed out on the couch trying to spend a nice evening with E watching a movie together.

So pretty much I’m a big, tired loser. But while I’m that, I’m also a stress-free loser because of our mini-opt out.

And guess what? I’m going to bed. Right now. Before I coma-out on the couch again…

xoxo a.m. (

I’m tired. And hormonal. Party.

So today I had a bit of a meltdown, one I didn’t know I was having until I was smack in the middle of it happening. I think it started with Vince getting his head stuck in a tree yesterday.

And then there was all the dog puke and shit I cleaned up yesterday and today. As well as several other things that are too mundane to bore you with. I was, surprisingly, short-tempered with pretty much everything. And there was still laundry to do and things to clean, dinner to make and pumpkins to carve.

I had a great nights sleep and thought I was over my short-temperedness until I had been up for an hour or so. And then the dog pooped in the house again. And then Vince  was Vince. And Vince, being the Vince he is, is a smart-talking, subjective listening type of three-year old. This might be all three-year olds, I’m not really sure.

When his Pop-Pop arrived to take him to GatorLand for a few hours, I just about cried. I had so many things to do around the house, things that would go a lot quicker without my little shadow. And despite that, there was just no energy for any of it. Edward finally kicked me out of the house and sent me to the movies, alone.

Which was ok with me. I didn’t really feel like talking to people. Aren’t I a peach, eh?

Sitting in the dark, eating buttery popcorn and drinking Cherry Coke and watching Hugh Jackman and some robots fight was pretty much the cure. I mean, fighting robots! Come on! Immediate cure-all!

I think part of the problem is that it’s not a problem, it’s just life. And part of the situation is that pregnancy brings so many other interesting things to the party. And part of my personality is that despite being 5 months pregnant, I think I have the same level of energy that I did prior. Which isn’t really true.

The movie really helped. I think I’ll need to go to at least one a week in order to get through the next few months… and I’ll probably have a few more hormonal breakdowns. Stupid hormones.

xoxo a.m.

Still here

Update: There is still no bum on the potty seat. In fact, his teachers told me that he has absolutely no interest in it. Despite many of his little friends being rather interested in it. And so we are shelving that for the moment and focusing on perfecting our “drink from a cup’ skillz. Which, apart from the occasional ‘shake shake shake’ incident, is proceeding nicely…

Life just seems to have gotten really busy over here. V has been having a bit of a rough adjustment to school. Well, mostly to me leaving his room. Ideally, I think he thinks I should stay there all day, crouched on the floor next to where he is sitting, or next to his classroom window, hunting for squirrels on the playground. And then probably curled up next to him on his wee cot.

There are rather a lot of tears when I leave the room. And some mornings we don’t even make it into his classroom… we detour to his old classroom to see his favorite ‘Ms Susan’ in K1 and get hugs.

Lots of morning battles over going to school, wearing our school shirt, turning into his school’s driveway etc etc. And then battles about taking bathes and going to bed in the evening. Edward and I are now fully committed to staying on his bed until he has drifted off. This is the only thing that works. Sometimes we drift off too. I have rescued E from the room many occasion. He has caught me dozing off too.

All of this fun stuff, all these little battles and late night cuddles results in us being worn out! And V’s latest? A 3:30 wake-up call with very loud crying and demands for the ‘big big bed’. We both slowly wake-up and then, after 20 minutes of very sad noises, we give in and he practically leaps into our bed.

So I guess the point of this post this evening is to let you know that WE ARE STILL HERE! AND STILL ALIVE!

And further thrilling posts about urine, feces and general chaos will be coming soon. I am sure you are all looking forward to it…

xoxo a.m.

Fourth and dreaming

Long weekend, I had delicious expectations for you. Everyone always does. I dreamt of dreaming. I dreamt of sleeping and the dreams that come with.

Alas, you disappoint me.

What is up with the 4:15 wake-up call from the Wee Man on Saturday morning? And then this morning’s 3:15 am cry-a-thon and subsequent removal to the ‘Big Bed’ for cuddles. Sleeping with a 2-year-old is a mess. Thrashing, light sleeping and dragon breath. Not from me, from the Wee Man.

Last night was a rough bedtime for him. He just couldn’t let me go. We have been having a hard time with bedtimes lately, me especially. M, apparently is a night-time God, who can make children fall asleep with the snap of his fingers.

This is intensely annoying to me as, after all, I was the one who was able to make V sleep with just the simple stroke of my hand on his back. My powers must be waning.

Ack.

Anyways, Dragon breath apparently derives from when a child cries and coughs so much because they are so upset you are not lying next to them in their teeny tiny wee bed, spending the night with you that they work themselves up to a state where, perhaps, they cough and cry and maybe throw-up a little?

This is a total hypothesis.

His breath smelled like vomit, but there was no puke evidence. Anywhere. So this is where my mind went.

Anyways, it is disgusting, as I am sure that you can imagine. I not only didn’t sleep well after V and I were cuddling,  but after several hours of sleeping face to face and having him blow that directly into my mouth I gave up and got out of bed.

So tonight, the Fourth, is my last chance for a good nights sleep. I am just a huge selfish bitch, I know.

But it is. And right now all of my neighbours are celebrating the 4th by having a huge fireworks display that actually is almost directly below V’s bedroom. I went out to the porch and watched some of it and had a feeling that V would have been rather scared of it. He didn’t enjoy the sparkler that we waved around earlier. His eyes got really big and he made no move towards them at all.

How he hasn’t woken up by now, I have no idea.

I have high hopes for tonight. High hopes for a restful sleep, a delicious 6:30 or 7 am wake-up (how lame am I!) and another delicious 2 miler before it gets super hot.

Monday has all the ear-markings of awesomeness. *If* we can first get through this night.

See? Just like most of my posts are. Starts off on a poo note (or a vomit one in this case) and ends on a lovely one.

Gosh I’m clever.

xoxo a.m.

Keys (and tonsils)

This might be the final installment in my tonsillitis saga. Why? Because I think I might be getting better!! My throat does not feel like I am swallowing razors, I have a teeny bit of energy and I got an extra 5 hours of sleep this morning. And I can eat real food. Well, I am about to eat real food and then go straight to bed and curl up with my bff Buffy.

So I decided not to inflict my disease on the office and kindly stayed home. Very nice of me, I thought. There was rather a lot of sleep. And rather a lot of Buffy. And rather a lot of Slurpees.

Post-morning nap, I woke up with a really sore throat and the thought of icey cold Coke slurpees on my mind. Still in an antibiotic coma, I stumbled downstairs grabbed my wallet and phone and headed for the back door.

I opened it, turned the lock and then looked at the lock. “What was I doing again”, I thought out-loud, “Oh, yeah, getting my keys”. I reached for my keys, stopped and then reached to lock the door again. I obsess about making sure the doors are locked.

I walked outside, shut the door and then reached in my pocket for my keys to lock the deadbolt.

Except they weren’t there. They were still in the house, on the freakin’ kitchen counter. It literally took my brain a good minute to figure out what I had done. Those antibiotics are really strong. I actually tried to jimmy a window open, bare-handed, so I guess it really doesn’t count as ‘jimmy-ing’. That didn’t work out either.

I am so glad I had my phone. And I am so glad that my father-in-law is retired. And I am so glad that he was out driving around, because 15 minutes later he pulled up to our house with a huge grin. And laughing as he stepped into my courtyard with the spare key. He unlocked and left, laughing.

“Well, I bet that was embarrassing,” M said later when I told him what happened. “How did you manage to do that?”

“I don’t even know,” I replied honestly. “I really needed a slurpee.”

“Jame, thats just sad.”

“I know.”

And then he laughed at me. And later, apparently, called his Dad and told him it was OK to block my calls from now on. And then they laughed at me together. Nice.

My ‘antics’ are a source of much amusement for my husband. Even when those ‘antics’ are done while I am feeble, infirm and plague-ridden and barely able to walk or think.

Dude.

Anyways, the slurpee was extremely tasty and soothing. A few hours later I went back for another one.

We now have  a spare key that we hide in the garage.

My throat doesn’t hurt enough for Slurpees to be an emergency.

I am going to work tomorrow.

I am better!! (ish)

Night-night!

Dude. Have I ever had a crazy weekend.

It started innocently enough, the regular Friday night things. I always order pizza on Friday nights and the delivery driver always can’t find my house. Always. V went night-nights like a charm, I munched out and planned my Saturday (which was going to involve Ikea and possibly breakie with Darling Cousin)

Mission

accomplished and we headed home for a nap (and a run for me). I thought V would take a nice long nap and so you can imagine my surprise when Little Man was up with Daddy in the kitchen.

Sweating  and panting, I entered the kitchen to be welcomed by my Mother-In-Law on speakerphone. “Hi Jaime”. “Hi Fran”.

M announced, “So, during my shower, I was interrupted by a knock at the door. I thought it was you, Jame. Turns out it was V”.

Me: “What the hell?!?!”

M: “Mom, I’ve got to go. Jame doesn’t want you to hear the words she is about to use”.

I used some big, shocking words. Quietly, of course and also covering my son’s ears. I then followed M upstairs, while carrying V, and received a demonstration of V’s latest skill.

Holy shit was it ever the freakiest thing. Legs swinging like monkeys, twisting and manipulating that little body he squirmed his way up so his body was lying horizontal on the edge of the crib. Then, balancing on his ribcage, he slowly lowered himself. Jeeez-Us.

And so that was it. The death of the crib. Several calls to my handy Father-In-Law later plus one expensive trip to Target, we were set. Eclipse curtains, curtain rods, bed set. Check!

And then? Then Hell arrived at my house and settled down for the night.

That big bed was scary. And V didn’t want to try it out, not matter how fun and cosy it was. No matter that it still had all of his little night-time friends. And blankets. No matter, V was not interested in any of it.

He cried. Cried and cried and cried and cried. And cried. He cried so much that his hair was soaked. My shirt was soaked. Everything was soaked. And as the minutes passed, the sobs got more and more heartbreaking. By this time, we had moved on from the chair to the bed, where he sobbed and tossed back and forth on me. Because despite all of this crying, he was exhausted. And during all of this crying? His eyes were shut.

The sobs wound down and the gasping, sobbing breaths began. Gasping and sobbing right into Mumma’s chest. Finally, he settled down. I sneaked-crawled off the bed and called my Mum. And during the call, he started crying again. I snuck back in, comforted him and then snuck out when he settled in…

And then I called my Mum again.

Around 3:30 I was woken up by someone poking me in the face, saying “Naaaasss!!! (nose) Maaaasssssue! (mouth) Naaaaaase! Mumma! Mumma? Mumma!! Mumma naass! ” Lots of little fingers poked me all over the face and guess what? Suddenly I was awake. As I opened my eyes, my vision was obscured by a huge grin.

Little Man slept 8 hours in his bed like a big boy!!

And didn’t go back to bed for 2 1/2 more hours. And then only went back to sleep because I slept with him (around 5:30), and then woke up around 8 am. Thank you blackout curtains!!

So we managed. And even though I felt like I ripped my sons childhood out from under him and even though I made him cry until I thought my heart would wrench right out of my chest. And even though yesterday evening, I cried too because I felt like I hurt my boy. And I cried because childhood is a fast and fleeting thing, or so it seems last night to Mummy.

And then this morning? While V pointed out the parts of our face, name Daddy, Mummy, Chewie and then shyly added his name to the list of “Who’s that?”, childhood reappeared.

Oh my son, my little little man. Not my baby boo anymore, but my shy and charming toddler, I love you. And I am sorry.

But honey? Your big bed and you snuggled up in it’s messy blankets is the sweetest thing ever.

Love you, Mummy…

(and love you too a.m.)

Kiss

I have started and stopped this blog a zillion times this evening. Good topic, boring topic, distraction distraction and some more distraction.

Current distraction is 21 Jump Street Season One. Johnny Depp has such a tidy haircut…

Total distraction.

And the other distraction  would be the Little Man coughing away in the other room. We can feel it coming. It’s hovering around the house. And by ‘it’, I mean the sickness. The Plague. It is circling the crib over in the other room.

We are currently doing the following:

Runny nose, cough, super runny nose, diarrhea, lack of appetite and today he had a bloody nose again. Bloody noses were all the rage a week ago and so we took a trip to my office (the handy thing about working for an ENT) and had that checked out.

One large tube of ointment later and at least  3 days of fighting with me over swabbing his nostril with it and the problem was healed.

And now it’s back. With a little more force than it was before. I do not enjoy swabbing anyones nose with Bactroban ointment. Today he ran into the corner and tried to hide his nose.

And on the sweet side of things, today he went and fetched my photo albums from the  bookshelf. He really wanted to look at pictures.

Patiently he sat in my lap for about 20 minutes while he looked at old pictures of Mummy and Auntie as little girls, some funny pictures of Daddy and Mummy in Japan and some funny pictures of Pop-Pop and Grandma Sassy’s house before they repainted it (it was very pink, so ‘Florida’).

After those, he went and got his baby book and wanted to look at those pictures too.

It is really hard to acknowledge that he is developing tastes, preferences and interests. I pretty much think he will still do and like everything that I think he should.

How special to share my childhood photos with my own child… Now if only I had a scanner so I could share them with you…

xoxo a.m.

Naptime for Mummy

Sometimes Mummies need naps.

Now Mummies, I know its hard to remember, especially when you are facing mountains of laundry and sticky surfaces everywhere. Handprints on your TV screen and all around the edges of your coffee table. Milk stains and banana smears on your (stupidly) non-leather furniture. Many many many very small toys scattered everywhere. Dirty toilets. Your husband’s (or domestic partner’s) socks littering the house.

But.

(and this but is very important)

But, you have to, for the love of God, sit down and put those feet up. Or you will literally wear those feet of yours right down to the quick.

Home with V the other day, my parents (who are visiting from Canada) went golfing and V went upstairs for nap-time right after they’d left.

After I put him down, I walked past my bedroom and happened to notice my bed eying me suggestively from the doorway.

“Sleep with me… sleeeeeeeep with me. I want you to,” it seemed to say. I just couldn’t resist those bedroom eyes, stripped down to my underwear, threw my clothes on the floor and crawled in.

20 seconds after snuggling my head into every pillow on the bed, I was out. And I remained out for 2 1/2 hours. Mummy-hood. Tiring.

I was so surprised when I woke up hours later. And damn did I feel good! Thanks, King-sized bed, for that little afternoon delight. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d taken a nap.

It made me think that I really need to make the time for these little things and the laundry can go and ‘eff’ itself. And the fingerprints can as well and M can pick up his own damn socks and clean that f-ing toilet too.

Chatting with my mum in the kitchen later that night, she mentioned something to me.

“Men always seem to think that women can just go go go and never stop. And they never notice when a little assistance would make things so much smoother”. (Or something like that)

And it is true.

So Men, those wives of yours, those mothers of your children, help them find the opportunity to put those feet up. Take a nap. Take a bath. It helps us not only retain our sanity, but also have the energy to do nice things for you in return… Like bj’s… (Ha!! just kidding, no-one who’s married has sex anymore…you know that!). More like back rubs and sweet kisses. I know you want those sweet kisses….

xoxo a.m.

(for some sweet He-Man related artwork, click the above picture)

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.

Cardio Win

So in my quest for rejuvenation, I have been hitting up the YMCA pretty hard this week. No more excuses. No more ‘I’m too tired’, ‘It’s too late’ or ‘Oh, M is looking particularly handsome tonight’… none of that!

Monday night I hit up some ‘Cardio Kickboxing’. Firmly planted right in the back of the room, which is kind of like the back of the bus or the back of the lecture hall. Ready for easy and quick escape and near the door.

Hoping to enter the class unnoticed, my plan went sour when the teacher started chatting me up before the class started. Well shit. I confessed my ‘back of the room’ plan and he just laughed at me and slapped me on the shoulder. “You’ll do fine,” he smiled.

Oh great.

I think about 10 minutes of the class was spent (stretched over the whole 45 minutes) was spent with me looking alternately confused and staring blankly at what the people around me were doing. There was a lot of sweating too. But it was a lot of fun.

Next up?

‘Cardio Dance’

*cue laughter*

Post-kickboxing class, I reflected on my lack of rhythm. Cardio dance cemented those thoughts. It turns out that Cardio Dance is a code name for ‘Zumba‘, which is something I have no business doing.

1) I have no rhythm

2) I have no kind of street edge at all and am not able to dance with attitude (or ‘tude’ as the teacher referred to it)

3) As I discovered, I am the whitest person alive.

4) I actually am not sure how to ‘shake my booty’.

5) Going to a sexy dance class, with gyrating crotch moves, booty shakes and pelvic thrusts in my husband’s oldest and most unflattering teeshirt made me slightly self-conscious next to the other pretty young thangs in their YMCA finery.

I wasted a lot of time turning in the wrong directions, facing the wrong way and staring blankly. And laughing at myself (out-loud too. It just was that ridiculous).

And finally?

Tonight was Spin Class.

Walking into the class with 2 other people who also had no idea what they were doing made me feel a little better. Our sweet and perky teacher, who looked like she was about 5, was so enthusiastic about everything I started to feel ok about it.

Class started.

Now here is something I can handle. Just good old fashion sweat.

Sweat combined with pumping bass and pop-music. And a bike. So simple. No fancy footwork. Easy rhythms. I can handle this.

I am in exercise heaven. I might have finally found something to replace Bikram.

45 minutes later, I was soaking and my legs were shaking. *fist pump*

Exercise win!

(and I remembered my vitamin AND flossed my teeth!) Health win as well!!!

* I’ll keep you posted on if I am able to walk tomorrow or not…