Elisa’s Day

we made it though olivia’s party. fun was had by all. though i have to say, being around other people’s kids really gives me an appreciation for how well behaved my kids are. and made me hope ( oh please oh please ) that my kids are not that poorly behaved at other people’s houses.

rude, defiant, demanding…….a 5 yr old with a sense of entitlement is a truly sad thing. not all of them of course. but most of them. ( more then half anyway, at least 3 out of the 5 little girls here were pretty unbelievable )

so now it’s just a waiting game……waiting waiting. did some moderate level housework yesterday. cleaned all our bedrooms and bathrooms, vacuuming, and moved the babies stuff in our room around how i want it, it was just kind of shoved in the corner before. kind of hoping it would at least produce some BH. which it just barely did. no plans today but to do a bit of work on the computer, make some bread and chill. tomorrow is doctors appointment and errands.

i think, if there is still no baby by the weekend, we’ll go up to my dad’s and sit on his beach, the kids have been bugging to go and timing just keeps working against us.

i have a big ol’ head sitting in my pelvis………..

oh wait, i do

saw the new again doctor yesterday, said baby was definitely lower, said my blood pressure was “always low for pregnancy, which is good” and seemed surprised, probably because i really pack on the ol’ pounds during pregnancy, no matter how many people wanna say how “small i am” or how i’m “just belly” i put on an average of 50 pounds every single time. lucky for me it all comes off eventually (well not all, dude, i’ll never be the skinny wiggs i was before i had sidney, nor do i expect to be)  also said the other patient he had due around the same time as me delivered tuesday night. lucky her.

i have everything i need for olivia’s party. tomorrow i’ll make the cupcakes and pizza dough.

another crazy friday looming ahead. ryan and i are sharing one car right now, as we attempt to save a bit of money and rid ourselves of the last few financial obligations left over from our (hopefully) soon to be closed corporation. it’s actually much less annoying in general then we thought it may be, mostly because i’m happy to hang around the house with the kids while ryan is at work the majority of the time. but there are still errands to be done, and hannah has swimming on fridays, so fridays have become this crazy day where i squeeze in as much running around as i possibly can. this is mostly due to that fact that ryan starts work at 6am. so in order to have the car, i get up at 5:15 and get dressed and drive him in to work. this is something i choose to do as little as possible ! LOL. so i try and squeeze as much into fridays as i can. the amazing part of this is of course, with two extra adults under this roof, i don’t need to wake all the kids up to do this…….*insert huge sigh of relief*……because how much would that suck? instead i leave sidney and olivia a note ( that they have yet to wake up and see anyway ) that says they should only go wake grandma up if they need to, and to otherwise wait for me, i’ll be home really soon. hannah still sleeps in her crib, so i don’t need to worry about her wandering around, and my mom is up to get ready for work shortly after i leave anyway and listening for any stirring.

so today i have to, drop sidney at school, then it’s the post office, swimming, my dad’s office to make some copies, bank, doctor to get my records for delivering doctor, dollar store for livie’s b-day invites and groceries ( which involves hitting three stores for the best deals and the bulk barn ) and by then it will probably be late enough that i’ll have time to run the groceries home, throw anything in the fridge/freezer that needs to be there and head back into town to pick up sidney and ryan.

phew. which means hannah skips her nap ( yes, my sweet hannah, still naps, for several hours every afternoon ) and i will have done none of my required sitting around with my feet up.

my doctor stopped delivering babies, maybe a year after i had hannah. i was disappointed then, but now that it actually affects me, i am even more sad. so yesterday i had my first appointment with the doctor who will be delivering, and he’s insisting on playing it out “by the book” ( something i would have had the luxury of avoiding, no doubt, if i was with my family doctor, who knows me, and knows my extremely routine pregnancies ) so i now have to see him every week until i go into labour….sigh…..and he doesn’t work fridays ! ha! so i guess it’s one more early morning a week for me, but at least i can spread out the errands and have two slightly less hectic days.

i’ve decided to have olivia’s birthday on the 13th. i figure i’m probably screwed no matter which weekend i pick. that will likely be the one i end up in the hospital for, so i’m just going to play the “odds” and assume it’s more likely i’ll go to term or late then a whole week early. it just hit me the other day, with olivia being 8 days late, her due date must have been the 21st of june. the new babies is the 22nd. pretty funny.

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eta: well, it just didn’t happen. once it dawned on me that hannah was on the last day of her antibiotic for a nasty chest infection and i realized she had to come home for her mid day dose…..that was it. done in. plus, on a normal day hannah is fine skipping her nap, but coming off being sick, well, swimming kinda wore her out, so we managed to get about half our list done before heading home. and now she’s gone for her nap, olivia is in my bed with a movie and i’m gonna lay my big, tired, BH having self down on the couch for a good ol’ re-run of star trek: tng.

maybe we’ll cross off a few more errands before it’s time to pick up sidney and ryan,  if hannah doesn’t sleep too long……but i definitly see a friday evening spent grocery shopping in my immediate future.

and counting.  the bassinet and change table are assembled, clean and set up in our room. the little tiny laundry is done ( with lots of help from the older girls, and lots of “it’s sooo cute” and “will the new babies arms/feet/legs really be this small?” ) and my mom took me out diaper shopping and bought me 5 new bumgenius to try out……is there anything softer then a brand new cloth diaper? lots more to do of course. but it’s a good start. and looks like another rainy and cold weekend ahead of us, so lots of time to get that kind of stuff done i guess ( i won’t complain too much as it was snowing out west….yeah, actual snow……my poor SIL, if it snows here, i think i might cry, for real, actual tears )

i was trying to explain to ryan to other night ( to no avail really, you just can’t ever understand it can you?…..unless you’ve done it )  what it was like when every. single.  movement is encumbered. it’s really amazing how quickly you settle into this lumbering existence, where every minor chore has you winded, as the norm. i mean, it’s less then half the pregnancy we spend this way really, maybe the last few months, maybe less, yet it really just feels like that is how it is and  i have to keep reminding myself the sheer shock at how very quickly i felt actually normal again after having hannah. that feeling dawning on me of “oh, wow, so this is what it’s like to have my energy and mobility back to a normal human’s level” pretty much the instant i was home from the hospital i’d say. not so much with sidney and olivia. probably because i was younger, skinnier pre-preg and also more enamoured with the whole magic of pregnancy thing. but yeah, with hannah, i remember it, and i try and hold on to it more then ever, because right now, as i have to divide up my day between things to do and time sitting with my feet up so my legs and feet don’t feel like they’ll explode and my back doesn’t give up on me, it seems like an insurmountable task to ever have my house in actual order again. but just 5 ( give or take of course ) more weeks……….

it’s a long weekend here, which is of course less exciting when the weather is crappy. we may go up to my grandma’s cottage, possibly, if the weather turns. but for now it looks like more picking away at indoor tasks. good thing there is an endless supply of them.

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.

well, inspired by ashley, i did finally go through the last two years worth of pictures and pick out the ones to have printed. and while i was doing it, and it was going pretty fast, i thought to myself “hey, this isn’t so bad, why didn’t i do this sooner” but that was while i was just selecting pictures, and still sitting on the fence about my laziness as far as red eye was concerned. see we have this camera, that unfortunately we love, that has a serious design flaw ( sony even admitted it is a design flaw eventually ) something about where the flash is mounted almost guarantees red eye. natural light, likely no problems, beautiful pictures. but man, so much red eye. and oh my god i hate fixing red eye in pictures bad enough one at a time, but attempting to go through almost 400 pictures and fix it……bah. so, i was undecided for a while, maybe i’ll just leave them, red eye is better then no pictures at all. but then i admitted to myself that i’ll be annoyed when i drop the 80$ and then 3/4 of the pictures aren’t as good as they could have been. so i put in about 2 hours the other night and got maybe a quarter of the way through. fun.

i am hoping today is the turning point weather wise. most of the snow should be gone by the weekend, and we’re supposed to stay around average temps, which sure would be nice for the long weekend. lots of spring/easter baking and crafts planned, even if it’s snowy. dinner with my dad, dinner with my mom, lunch with ryan’s mom. busy weekend.

i have approximately 10 more weeks to go. i feel like it’s going to go fast. especially once the weather turns. and i have olivia’s birthday to plan and be ready for too. i am definitely starting to feel that third trimester exhaustion. nothing like being ready for bed at 9pm ! and next week i turn 34. crazy. my dad always gives me money for my birthday, always has, probably always will. this year i have big plans for a few hours to myself, a pedi and a haircut. i haven’t had a hair cut in well over a year, and i can’t see ( let alone reach ) my toes anymore so a pedi is definitely in order. i am very much looking forward to it.

it’s march break time around here, which means all the kids are home for the week. thankfully ryan’s mom is also here, because they appeared to have big plans to spend the entire week fighting. but with that new distraction, the fighting has mellowed (a little).  also, i am sick again, so having some extra hands around is nice. sickness while pregnant is truly a crime of nature. instead of a weakened immune system, pregnancy should offer a super duper boosted immune system that no germs can penetrate. in fact, it should extend through motherhood. no one gestating or caring for kids should ever have to do so while fighting a flu or cold. but alas, it is not the case, instead my compromised immune system has had me sick, what, four or five times now since i first saw the two pink lines.

on the plus side of the equation, the long term forecast for the next 7 days only has one day in the negative. that is something. i’m sure this hideous time of year isn’t helping my cold and flu status. when it can literally ( and was last week ) be +12 one day and -14 the next day, it’s just no good. so a few days of consistent, above zero weather sure sounds nice. there is nothing better then the kids being able to just throw on their rain boots and go outside. no 10 minute struggle with snow suits and fights over which hats and mittens everyone is wearing. just boots and out. beautiful.

the kids are all very very big. sidney is just barely going to make it through the winter in her current wardrobe. she is all ankles and wrists hanging out in most of it. yet i refuse to buy her new clothes now for a season that will soon be behind us, so we’re just going to have to manage a little while longer. olivia is the same, but of course that mostly means digging through the bins in the basement. not quite as horrific a task as the actual swap out, and storage of seasonal clothes. but not enjoyable whatever the case. our basement is a right mess, my bins are as well. no well organized, well marked collection of clothes and shoes right now.

olivia is going to be five this summer. that seems just crazy. she is stuck right now, between big and little. sometimes acting so big, other times clinging to being “little” ( right now we’re battling a bad bout of baby talk with olivia ). sidney will be seven in the fall. man. she is like a real big kid now. not like “big kid” like you say to kids just leaving toddlerhood behind them to go off and start kindergarten and such. but a real big kid. or just a kid even. sometimes i imagine her as a baby and it seems so very long ago and just yesterday all at the same time. hannah is talking in real sentences now. and saying the funniest things. when she’s not having a huge meltdown over the most minor of things of course. it’s a two year old thing, we wouldn’t understand.

a friend asked me a few months back if i felt that “i’m done” feeling that women claim to, when they decide to not have any more babies. i did not. at the time i was all too aware of the sadness and regret i’d eventually feel at the truth of no more babies. but i feel it now. i’m tired of being pregnant.  i have spent approx. 40 of the last 84 months pregnant. 4 pregnancies, each one less enjoyable then the last.  i will have had four babies in the last 7 years. that is pretty much constant nursing, night waking, and diapering. well over half of our basement is crammed with storage of baby stuff. in the midst of that mess the other day, i said to ryan “well, no more baby stuff is ever coming back into the basement at least. it can go right from baby to the consignment store” and that seemed like a truly great truth. so yeah. i guess i do know it now. i am. so. done. i am still well aware of the future twinges of baby lust that are to come. since most my friends are either done, not having kids, or far away, i’ll stick with hope some of my older cousins will start having babies that i can hold (and smell) to fill that gap. but for now i’m just looking forward to last baby.

well, this week we experimented with a few new recipes. we made crackers ( soda ) and granola. these are both things we go through in quantity ( not soda crackers really, kashi crackers, but soda seemed like the easiest recipe to start with, and that i had all the ingredients for ) so they are both things that i find myself needing from the store before i really need to go shopping again. and yes i could buy multiples when i shop, but i’m working on a budget here, and one of the biggest and easiest ways we cut our grocery expenses was to stop running out for a few things every couple days. shopping every couple weeks and sticking to a list makes a huge difference. and so, if i could just make crackers and granola when ever we were almost out, that sure would be nicer.

i’d say the crackers were a moderate success. they aren’t terrible, but they aren’t great. it was almost impossible to roll the dough out thin enough. i need a marble rolling pin, or one of those things for the kitchen aid you put pasta dough through. i’m going to try the whole wheat ones next and see if they are any better. i’d rate the granola as a success. the kids like it ( well not sidney, but sidney has a very short list of foods she deems acceptable, despite all of our efforts and frustration to the contrary ) and i like it okay. it needs more oats, more honey and more cinnamon. i think. but definitely workable.

and now we’re at sunday, already. if i had remembered the clocks went back i wouldn’t have kept putting off dragging out of bed. now i’ve lost an hour to my morning. sundays are hair washing day for the kids and this week it’s upstairs for cleaning. yes, i only wash the girls hair once a week. appalling i know. ( see me rolling my eyes? ) it just doesn’t need more then that since we switched to natural shampoo. plus if i do it during the week in the evening i have to send them to bed with wet hair….blech. probably in the summer when they are out getting grubby all day, i’ll have to throw a mid week wash into the mix.

ryan’s getting his bread dough started, and while it’s rising we’ll all head upstairs to start the picking up.

i’m hoping to make it into town this afternoon to visit my grandma. my aunts are in town, and i haven’t seen grandma in a while. she’s 84 ( i think ) i really should go more. it’s one of those things i always say and never do. but i am going to really try today, and i want to bring the baby blanket i’m working on to show her. she’s a knitter, she’s made many a sweater for the girls. and i need to hit the bulk barn too. even though we were just there. sigh. always forgetting something. we got the oats for the granola and should have gotten rolled oats as well. should have. didn’t. but i need to make tiny muffins for the girls lunches, and i need rolled oats.

nothing much to say pregnancy wise. really it’s mostly complaining so……well….boring. but i will say that the last two times, i had anterior placenta, which basically meant that almost all fetal movement was “cushioned” by the placenta and i felt almost nothing. it was freaky, even when you knew why. but this time, we’re back in business with the wacky baby movements. so that is nice. and exciting since it’s my last time. it’ll be cool in another month or so when they’re big enough for the girls to feel it too.

yesterday hannah and i had our first swimming lesson free of crying,  protesting and clinging. yay. which makes the whole thing much more pleasant. i kept telling myself if we just kept going, she would settle in, but it kept not happening. i was definitely starting to be doubtful of it ever getting any better. and i was thinking about skipping the spring session, but now……well, now i think we’ll just set ourselves way back to the beginning by skipping a whole session. so it looks like another round of fun in the pool for us. yay. ( can you hear the sarcasm? ) i can’t wait until it’s summer and we can get our water time in, you know, actual bodies of water.

hannah has also gotten very very big. in the last week. where it came from, how it happened…..a mystery. confounding parents for all of time i imagine. it literally seems like overnight she went from annoying toddling baby to playmate to her sisters. ( still annoying at times of course ) but able to play along with their games. so much pretend play. and complex play, not just this stuffed animal says hello to that stuffed animal. and never ending talking. so much talking. all the time with the talking. endless questions and observations and insights of the 2.5 yr old mind. big.

sidney and olivia tell me they are happy they’re getting a sister. there has been lots of talk of the new baby. olivia is also talking a lot about her birthday, even though it’s not until june, june 29th, and new baby is due june 22. so i really hope this baby comes on time, or even a little early, so that it doesn’t end up right at olivia’s birthday. that will leave us with two june birthdays and two september birthdays. last time around, i found myself writing sidney’s birthday invites while in labour with hannah, because i had no expectation of her coming early ( since olivia was late ) and wasn’t ready at all. and didn’t want sidney’s bday invites to get lost in the shuffle. maybe i’ll have to get olivia’s out extra early just in case. it seems both infinitely far away, and just around the corner.

i can’t say i’m particularly enjoying this pregnancy, the novelty has worn off by number four. mostly it’s just uncomfortable  ( on so many levels and in so many different ways it’s impossible to catalogue them all ) a hindrance to everyday chores people who can bend over take for granted ( like say…putting clothes in the washer, or you know, putting on socks ) and annoying.

but little babies….who isn’t a sucker for little babies. the smell of a newborn…….is there anything better?

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.