Elisa’s Day

since i had babies and started driving again ( the ten years before i had babies i had no car and never drove )  i have had 3 minor accidents. one actual collision and two fender bender type deals, one in a parking lot and one in my own driveway. i have always blamed the “mommy brain” but ryan just thinks i’m a bad driver.

i read an interesting article in national geographic about sleep just last week. it was mostly about how little they really understand sleep, why we do it, why we need it. all they really know for sure is that we do. if we don’t sleep we die. there was a lot of type dedicated to sleep disorders like narcolepsy and apnea. and not a single sentence to all us mothers out there.

the one sentence that resonated with me is this ( paraphrasing ) “staying awake for 24 hours, or getting less the 5 hours for 5 nights in a row is the equivalent of having a blood alcohol level of 0.1″ well, dude, every single mother i know ( with the exception of maybe 2 ) gets less sleep then that.  i haven’t gotten more then 5 straight hours of sleep a night in, what, 9 years…..of course that isn’t entirely true, there are nights i get more sleep, but no doubt averaged out with the ones i only get to sleep an hour at a time and hey, it’s about right. so i guess it really is a fucking miracle i function as well as i do then. which i have been telling ryan for years, maybe now he’ll actually believe me a little more.

it really is true though. the kind of clouded head, the inability to remember anything and be distracted by everything……. that is how i feel a lot of the time. and i try very hard to consciously focus when doing things like operating a vehicle, but one slip in concentration is all it takes. and don’t even get me started on all the minor bits and pieces…..every sink almost over flowed, every pot boiled dry, every load of laundry i go back to find dry in the washer or wet in the dryer because they got put in but not turned on.

why we’re unrecognized i don’t know. because we choose to have kids? i guess. because there is some miracle sleep training method out there that if we’d just submit to, we’d be rocking our 9 hours like everyone else? yeah…..right…… well i have to say that sleep training only works in some cases anyway. no matter what method you’re trying. some babies and kids just don’t sleep well. and if they don’t sleep well, you don’t sleep well. they could have dedicated even one paragraph to those of us, the exhausted masses.

i’d wager a guess that motherhood outnumbers all other sleep disorders.

a few random things i have been meaning to talk about floating around in my head, i could do a small update for each one, but’s lets go with a scatted, random, longer one instead. but hey, ryan fixed my admin so i can upload pictures, so at least now there will be cute baby( or big kid ) pictures along with the rambling updates.

lets start with the most inane. you already know i love tv, but i especially love crime drama. so anyway, i watch criminal minds. and a couple seasons back they replaced a character. and the new guy was fine. never bothered me one way or the other (though i liked the old character better ). then a couple weeks ago ryan and i watched a special about the simpsons. and during that special i learned that the actor who plays said character also voices fat tony. and NOW all i ever hear while watching criminal minds when he talks is FAT TONY FAT TONY FAT TONY. i NEVER heard it before. now it’s all i hear. not only am i boggled by the fact that it seems so obvious now but that i never noticed before, but i find it distracts from the show when all i hear is fat tony.

sidney had to take something to school today for their valentines party. there was a schedule sent home at the beginning of the year, and we were scheduled for the end of yr party. yesterday she came home telling us that one girl scheduled for valetines day is absent so sidney’s been switched. which, whatever, honestly i could whip up cookies or cupcakes from scratch, no problem, even on that short of notice. what is so !#$%@ annoying is that the school board policy as of this year is “any snack sent to school to be shared with classmates MUST be bought” …….seriously…….because you know, it’s all this bullshit health board regulations and general fear mongering about baked goods and the general public. so you can’t provide anything to the general public that wasn’t prepared in a health board approved kitchen anymore. i’m not sure exactly what kind of evil i’d be spreading with my home made cupcakes, maybe they came in contact with nuts, or i prepared them on a salmonella covered counter or something. because i’m clearly an incompetent moron, as is anyone offering homemade baked goods ( uh, just seems not likely to me ) so instead, i had to get in my car, drive 20 minutes, spend $10 on some chemical heavy, probably don’t even taste good, valentines cookies from the grocery store. it’s nice to know that chemicals and preservatives are considered a better alternative then anything homemade.

as expected my good sleeper was replaced by a not good sleeper around 4 months of age. and it’s been a rough go ever since. i just really can’t get up every 1.5 hours. maybe, if i she was my first baby and i could dedicate all of my energy to her, if i didn’t have three other children that require my attention. i find it very interesting to see the difference between parenting one or two kids and parenting more then three. the luxuries afforded a parent of a single child as far as time and focus are pretty staggering. i know we made the conscious choice to sacrifice some of that for a large family. and i’d do it again. but i’m off topic already. i just can’t get up every 1.5 hours. it is not an option. and since sleep training at this age is also not an option, i was definitely delving into desperation. then my parenting magazine that my MIL always gets me from the kids magazine drive came. it was the yearly “sleep issue” and although it didn’t hold any main articles that held any information i didn’t already know, in an article about the newest fad “sleep doulas” i read one small paragraph about the possible downsides of nursing to sleep. now i nursed all my other babies to sleep all the time. maybe it caused issue, but never issue enough  for me to really notice so…….but every baby is different, and this fell into my “acceptable to try” category ( along with sleeping in bed with us, different sleeping positions in her crib and cereal before bed, which yes, i know is a myth, but hey, remember the desperate part? not a lot of options to even try at 7 months ) so we started nursing at wake up and then a couple hours later in a wakeful environment  ( no more dark quiet nursing ) and then when it’s time i rock her to sleep instead. it has made a shocking difference right away. crazy. a couple night she even slept through the entire night. but most nights she now wakes once  which is a huge improvement on 4 or 5 times ( obviously in the night we still nurse to sleep, it seems to be different for whatever reason, maybe because she isn’t really even awake ). and for several days now, when she is ready for her morning nap i have laid her down in her crib and she goes quietly to sleep all on her own. i only discovered this when i put her down to do the girls hair the other morning before they left for school and she had quietly fell asleep by the time i finished. it only works for the morning nap for some reason, but whatever. best breakthrough ever. seriously.

and now, my favorite sleeper, almost to small for the big giant baby. heart bum.

yesterday was our annual school trip to the peterborough zoo, annual because they do it in both years of kindergarten at the girls school. which means that we have done it the past two years with sidney and now olivia this year and next and by then hannah will be in kindergarten.

the peterborough zoo is a sad place really. last i checked, one sad old camel ( who’s cell mate died just last year, of old age i imagine, so he now has some scruffy donkeys for company ) a few reindeer, a bunch of riled up lemurs, and an empty python enclosure, does not a zoo make.  not to mention the ramshackle assortment of  remaining animals that barely compete with any small farm. oh look hannah, turkeys…..oh wait, we have turkeys at home…….throw in a rickety old miniature train ride that has the same script it has since i was a kid ( pretty much the entire zoo is the same as when i was a kid ) and involves short ride through some tress looking for poorly painted cut outs of animals. the biggest draw is the huge playground, including a giant slide down the hillside.

the school goes there because it’s free no doubt. but the zoo sucks so much because it’s free, no doubt. if they just charged a small admission i’m sure they could improve it by leaps and bounds, as it is i have no idea how they even maintain it to the pathetic standard they do.

but the kids love it all the same. and though there could have been few things i wanted to do less yesterday then get up at 5am so i could keep the car then drive the 40 min to the zoo and then walk my big, pregnant, butt around the zoo all day, that is exactly what i did. see, the huge playground i mentioned. well it’s not fenced. or supervised in anyway. and it’s big, and sprawly ( having been added on to over the years many times ) and the zoo is just open to anybody, oh yeah, and free right, so you don’t even have to fork over 5$ or anything in your master plan to snatch some kid. it’s hard to keep track of a few kids on it in the most vigilant of ways. and i just can’t in good conscience leave that responsibility up to someone i don’t know. we’re talking four year olds here. so we go. i can’t actually go as a parent chaperon, because i have hannah with me as well, but i just go, and follow behind and park myself on the playground and keep my eye on them ( while olivia’s official parent “chaperon” sat at a picnic table chatting with the teachers, a picnic table that was in no way, in view of even a third of the playground )

so another year, another trip to the “zoo” under my belt.

there’s only 3.5 weeks of school left too. this is going to be a crazy few weeks for us. a lot, a lot, of stuff going on, not the least of which of course, is you know, a baby coming. but seriously that just comes in the midst of all kinds of craziness…..of course. ryan and i are headed off to the city on saturday which i couldn’t be looking forward to more. a day away from the kids and spent with good  friends, and hopefully some good food. have i ever mentioned how much i miss city food? oh yeah….right…..only every chance i get.

i think so far, the most surprising challenge of having kids has been dealing with school. i guess i didn’t realize it would be so hard, but given my feelings about school in general i guess i should have seen it coming.  between piles of homework in grade one and bitchy principals chastising me for jay walking in front of the school ( instead of walking the entire block each way to the cross walk from the extra parking across the street…..in the rain…..with a baby…..) and curriculum that seems to involve a lot of nothing while reading and writing your letters properly and holy fuck, just holding your pencil properly is all left to home, it’s all i can do to hide my outright disdain for the whole system from the kids.

and i know that they have to learn how to use computers, i get that. but how much time a week are they spending in “computer lab” playing pc games, maybe a bit of that time could be dedicated to making sure they all learn how to hold their pencil properly so that they don’t develop a bad habit that will plague them the rest of their lives. ( my mom, an english teacher, is always saying how poor most of her students handwriting is, and that most of them now print which is so slow. yet plagiarism is so rampant with the internet that she makes them write in class essays a few times a year, and it is literally painful for them since writing things by hand is becoming a lost skill, something considered un-improtant i guess, why learn to write nicely when your expected to type anything anyone else is ever going to  read anyway? )

i’m pretty sure i have already complained lots about the homework thing. homework should start midway through elementary school, grade 4 or 5. and even then, it should be minimal, a few projects, small assignments, just to get into the habit for highschool. you know who shouldn’t be bringing home 3o minutes worth of homework a night? 6 year olds!! ( i think that’s a conservative estimate btw, but i couldn’t say how long it actually would take since we don’t do it all )

i did just read an article that there is maybe going to be a shift back in the other direction, that one school in ontario has put a ban on homework all together in elementary school, with good results so far. and it quoted a few new studies about the fact there seems to be no correlation between homework and improved school work, or test scores. that in fact it could be the opposite, too much homework is actually bringing the level of school work and test scores down. so i guess it’s a start.

and the general meddling in my parenting……holy crap….like the vaccinations thing. or all this “homework” half of which is just poorly veiled attempts by the government/school board to make parents spend time with their kids. and while the sad reality is that some parents probably need that, we do not. we do lots of things with our kids and i don’t need some lame reading/worksheets homework sent home to have a reason to read to my kids. in fact i have so many better things to do with my time with my kids then homework it’s not even funny.

we’ve talked about homeschooling….on and off. i really doubt i have the patience to do it. plus, those days, when it is just hannah and i…..those are nice. besides, you know who loves school? 5 and 6 year olds!! which is why i try and keep my disdain to myself as much as possible. the kids really do love it, and i’d hate to taint that for them so early.

but i think about it still….my mom guesstimated you could cover the required curriculum in approximately 2 hours a day. that leaves a lot of hours for baking and art and fun experiments and playing, not to even mention, oh how i loath to pack lunches, it’s so very hard to pack a litter free, healthy lunch five times a week for a picky eater who goes to a peanut and fish free school……….i know right?………but then there’s the missing of the non-academic aspects too, learning the structure and the social aspects of school, both important i think.

i guess, as with all majour decisions we’re required to make for our kids, who’s to really know which is the right one?

i had a lovely birthday. my dad took hannah and i ( the other girls were in school ) out for lunch and then my mom and step dad made us dinner. the girls made me great cards, dad gave me cash as always, mom gave me a GC for a pedi and the sookie stackhouse set, which hasn’t come in yet from chapters.ca…….but soon, i’m looking forward to something new to read.

a few weeks back, i received a letter from the health board, threatening to suspend olivia from school because we were behind on our vaccinations. well, i have to tell you, i am not against vaccinating, i believe that herd vaccination has eliminated many diseases, and that the only reason it’s still fairly safe for people to choose not to vax is because the majority are still vaccinated. and if more and more people don’t, we’ll see these diseases possibly return. i’ve done my research. i know vaccinations have risks, and i know some are much less necessary then others ( or completely unnecessary all together ), and i’m making my choices accordingly.

BUT

what i am very against is the government thinking they can push me around and threaten me into following their schedule, that they somehow have some kind of say in how and when i have my kids vaccinations administered.

SO

when i called the health board to explain that olivia had an adverse reaction to the vaccination in question, and that i wasn’t going to be getting it again, they said my doctor needed to fill out a bunch of forms. and that she would have to refill them out each time that vaccination came up again during her school career. and the better option was that i needed to send her to a special allergist who could possibly figure what she reacted to in the shot, by administering it under supervision ( uh, yeah, lets just watch her get the horrible rash together, that should give us all the answers ) and that OH MY GOD didn’t i know that you can get tetanus just by getting a scratch gardening? uh yeah, try and scare me a little more why don’t you?

SO

last week we sent off our conscientious objector forms to the good ol’ health board. short and sweet. one page form, witnessed, signed and sealed by a lawyer and that’s it. i am now free to vaccinate my kids on my terms without constant harrasment. something that really should be a given in my opinion.

a very nice chocolaty long weekend all around. lots of family and treats and good food. can’t really think of a better way to spend a long weekend.

unfortunately it was still cold, and is going to be cold until the end of april seems like. i’m not sure i can handle these new seasons. you know, the new winter that starts in november and ends in may. and the almost non-existent fall and spring. and the never long enough summer, 3 months of semi hot weather if we’re lucky. any progress on canada acquiring one of those tropical type islands or what? seriously………

trying to wade through taxes, which will be so much easier once we wrap up all the loose ends and finally close our corporation. although, i have to say, the audit that started almost 2 years ago was finally closed last week, and that is a huge relief. not because i was ever worried, because we always always operated on the books 100%, but more it was just a huge hassle. the auditor was very nice, constantly thankful of our politeness and quick compliance ( obviously no point in blaming her )  and was always complimenting us on our organization and professionalism, which was nice. it was also very encouraging to know that i, never ever a big fan of math or numbers, did a very good job with the book keeping. she said the discrepancy, for the 3 years they audited was so low it was considered by the government as negligible and there would be no adjustment at all required. nice. anyway, after years of the government breathing down our necks ( the full audit of 3 fiscal years, was only the last in a string of annoying government interferences )  for no real reason other then we operated a business they didn’t really understand, it will be a huge relief to be 100% done with it. ryan and i are both looking forward to spending at least a few years at regular ol’ jobs, where someone else is accountable to the government, and all we do is work, get paid and go home and about our lives otherwise. we’ll revisit in a few years and see if we’re ready to try something else new. plus after years in front of a computer, ryan sure is enjoying getting out and doing some actual labour, he’s going to be in great shape by the end of the summer that’s for sure ( if not horribly sunburned, getting him to wear sunscreen is going to be the challenge )

i am dealing with going from a WAHM to a SAHM, which let me tell you, is quite the pay cut ! luckily i’m a whiz with a budget. and it’s pretty easy to live on a budget if you know how, but more then anything else, i miss getting my nails done. not because i’m particularly vain, but because i am a compulsive nail and cuticle picker/chewer. acrylic nails actually physically stopped me from doing it ( ryan didn’t get that until i finally explained it to him a few months ago, he thought it was more of a mental, oh my nails look nice so i won’t pick them, thing ) because acrylic nails are so thick they are useless for picking at my cuticles and keep me from being able to chew as well ( literally to thick for me to be able to reach my cuticles to chew )  and as it is i just can’t stop myself. i mean it’s crazy. i quit smoking cold turkey 8 years ago, but this……nope.

so, oh how i miss them. but i’m working on a a new, more  budget conscious solution, but we’ll see if it goes anywhere or not.

i entered the illustrious third trimester while i wasn’t looking, seems crazy, but i knew it was true, when the energy i was enjoying so much from the second trimester faded into a overwhelming need to lay down in the afternoon ( again ) and it became literally impossible to sleep in any kind of comfort. sleep is now an act in futility mostly involving trying to be somewhat comfortable and endless trips to the bathroom.

two days until my birthday.

two days left of march break, and we’ve all survived. for kids with no plans, it sure seemed busy, which is a very good thing. between activities with the grandma’s and a trip to the Onatrio Early Years Center for “wear you pjs” day, the week flew by. we also had some great weather, much time was spent playing outside. you can like winter activities all you want, it’s just not the same as being able to spend hours playing outside in the spring/summer.

ryan and i even got away for an awesome dinner child free. our real estate agent surprised us with a gift certificate not too long ago for a thai place in the “city” ( i use the term loosely, the only real city close to here is toronto, but this is the closest thing to us that isn’t a small town, so for the sake of argument we’ll call it a city, and hey, it does have some decent food ) so off we went. dinner was so good and the gift certificate covered everything including the tip…..nice. i heart thai food.  ( and no we’re not selling, but she’s been our agent for a lot of sales and purchases over the years, so i guess she just wanted to give us something….better late then never LOL )

today we have an early lunch planned, then loading into the car and off to my dad’s place. he’s about an hour away. we’ll visit the horses, and then hit the sugar bush down the road for the little tour and some maple syrup on snow. then dinner, throw the kids into their pj’s and back into the car and head home.

tomorrow, try and restore order to the house, and sidney has a play planned at a friends. which is nice. i’m sure she’ll love a break from her sisters. me too. so i’ll probably drop her and then stay in town and run a few errands until it’s time to pick her up. and maybe i’ll try and con the neighbours into inviting us for dinner too, we’ll see.

well, another cold and icy week behind us. the one day it went above zero, it rained and rained and rained. and then the temperature dropped 10 degrees and we now live on the ice planet ( we actually have one corner in the back that is so crazy flooded, ryan is going to try skating on it tomorrow ).

today olivia skipped her swimming lesson to go to a birthday party. and i cleared my afternoon to stay with her, as i would have with sidney at that age. but olivia is no sidney. she gave me a quick “bye mom” at the door without even a backward glance and off she went. so i stayed for a bit to talk with the mom i’d never met, and then once i felt assured there was adequate supervision and it wasn’t a meth lab or bordello or any other unsavory environment, off i went to run some errands.

mostly i wandered around zellers not spending money. but it was quiet and no one talked incessantly in my ear, argued, or wandered off, while i spent a good half an hour in the yarn section, so that was nice. in the end i picked up an irresistible violet, nubbily, super duper soft, baby yarn ( also white as per the patter on the label ) it was a crochet pattern marked easy. but after consult with my mom, who crocheted a few lines ( is that the right term? ) it was determined that type of textured yarn, not a good one to use your very first time crocheting. so i’m going to knit it. now i just have to decide if i’ll keep the white and try and knit two colours, or return the white for purple and just knit it all one. or keep one white and my mom said she’d crochet an edge for me when i was done. or keep both white and knit squares or long pieces and then stitch them together. obviously the easiest solution is to just knit it all one colour. which i could start now and do on my own. but eventually i’m going to have to learn to do something other then knit rectangles.

i also treated myself to a bag of goodies. which i didn’t notice until i was home tonight and opened them, were “new and improved” even “goodier” read the bag. but really they are suckier. they are bigger and the candy coating seems kind of craptastic. what was wrong with the old goodies? so sad.

and now, i have about an hour or more of laundry folding to do. i can never decide which is worse. doing a bit of laundry every day or doing it all at once. but the kids laundry alone has hit 4 big and crammed full baskets a week at least. and i generally do it all at once, like today, i find it makes the sorting easier. hopefully there is something mildly amusing on tv to pass the folding time.

ahhh, happy family day. that is our newly appointed statutory holiday, i think last year was the first year. i’m all for a long weekend, but there is a reason most of canada’s are in the summer, because who the @#!$^$%# cares about a long weekend in february? lets see, how should we enjoy this lovely holiday, considering it’s  minus 10 and our entire property is under ice at this point thanks to last weeks 3 days of rain. plus, you can’t just make up an an arbitrary “holiday” and expect me to be all into celebrating it.

so, we have decided to spend “family day” with some friends, in hopes that our children will all amuse each other and we can have some adult conversation ! LOL, is that somehow anti-family day i wonder? but some adult conversation over pizza and wii sounds like a lovely way to spend this crappy winter day to me.

ryan and i agreed a couple years ago, no kids video games in this house, probably ever, especially not while the kids are young. even though girls are less likely to be obsessed with video games, it’s not unheard of. and i believe that obsession starts  when they play at a young age. of course ryan has his playstation. and once in a while the girls pretend to bang away on the rock band drums, or watch him play a game of hockey, but that is entirely different then having their own system or games to play on a regular basis.

and i have to say, the wii especially, freaks me out, with their whole marketing as some kind of replacement for real play or exercise ( don’t go run around outside, run around on this little mat in front of your tv instead ) or, you know, human contact ( don’t go actual shopping with you friends, go virtual shopping instead……ummm, what? )  but……that being said, i’ve already stated before, i’m all about the moderation. so sure, i’ll never allow one in my house, but that doesn’t mean i don’t get the fun in getting to play it once in a while at a friends, or relatives

plus i’ll be attempting to convince everyone to give the pizza hut lasagna a try, because i want some. why? i don’t know, no doubt it’s gross. but what can i tell you, a pregnant lady wants what she wants for no discernible reasons. and junk is high up on my list. i try and hold out as much as possible. i know we eat healthier then the average family by far anyway. but once in a while i have to cave to the hormones and feed them junk.

well, like i said in the comment forum below, the last movie i saw in the theaters was Cars, before that, probably the last movie in the new star wars trilogy. i don’t get out to the movies too often. it’s probably good that the theater here in town sucks, because if we had a decent theater in town i probably would be tempted to go more often, i do really like movies. as it was, twilight wasn’t still playing here, only 3 screens means pretty quick turnover, so we headed off to peterborough, where they do have a nice theater and sat in comfy, stadium style seats, to enjoy our mediocre movies.

it actually wasn’t so bad ( it wasn’t so great either ) it was probably about exactly as disappointing as i expected it to be, but oddly, for completely different reasons. somehow, they managed to really mess around with the events and time lines really a lot, but still give you the feeling they stayed true to the book, which is odd. maybe because they stuck to a lot of the original dialogue ( which can come off pretty cheesey btw, for some reason less cheesey to read then to hear out loud ) just put it in different places, no doubt to move the story along quicker. i thought the actors did a decent job of conveying the internal dialogue we all knew was there ( did anyone go see it who hadn’t read the book? ) which isn’t easy considering how much internal dialogue there is. i found the lead actor odd, sometimes quite attractive, sometimes just odd looking……..huh.

but the most dissappointing part was actually the effects, use of and lack there of. i guess it’s a hard thing to put on screen. and i’m guessing twilight, not working with a huge, blockbuster style budget or resources. but it seems like the effects that were there, could have probably been skipped all together, really, speeding up the film to make it look like he walked around the car really fast, did we have to see that?  there must have been a better way to convey that, and the tree climbing…..yeah…..wow, so bad……. and most dissappointing was the vampires themselves, sometimes very pale, sometimes more average, sometimes looking like people wearing way to much pancake ( hey, i hung out in  a lot of goth bars in the day, there is nothing worse then someone  in too much pancake ) and i know there is post production ways to make people look…….more………like they should have looked, they should have looked like the elves in lord of the rings, no pancake, no stubble……just ethereal. but hey, i’m sure lord of the rings, whole different budget and resources.

but, even though i’ve written about them in boring detail, they were pretty minor annoyances in a pretty entertaining movie, what the hell, i’ll watch it again, when it comes out on video, so it couldn’t have been that bad.