Elisa’s Day

summer is winding down, but as illustrated above, much fun was had on our second trip to stay with my dad while the older girls did their pottery class. the weather was sub-par and the drive was a bit longer this time ( which i’ll get into more in a bit ) so the younger girls and i spent most of our mornings in town, killing time, instead of going all the way back to the cottage. which meant a lot of wandering around downtown, a lot of time spent in the park and also the library ( unfortunately the early years center up there is closed for the entire month of august, it would have been nice to have that to do ) luckily they do have this great park right downtown. molly hearts swings.

the older girls really liked pottery, and this time around the class was at the actual college as opposed to the highschool. what a neat school.  the highschool is on the edge of town on the side closer to my dad’s, but the college is through town and then several minutes out the other way. making the drive almost 25-30 min. but it was worth it to get to see the college and the girls got to use the actual pottery class room.

and even though the weather was not the best, kids just don’t care. they swam every afternoon. they even scored an extra day, as my plan to pack up friday morning while they were at class, scoop them up and drive home right from the college, was dashed down by a slow firing kiln. the pieces were not cooled off enough to unload by noon. so our options were to wait around until 4 or have them shipped. so we just waited and the kids were happy enough to have one more afternoon in the water. all in all a good week. one day we even drove to the next small town to hit it’s little ice cream spot, just for the fantastic climber my dad had spotted earlier in the week. there it is right behind the local ice cream shack…..the best climber ever, this is what we need to build in our back yard.

i came home to a lot of cleaning and organizing to do since school is only a week away now, and a truckload of beans. we over planted beans for sure. now i’m just trying to give them away as much as i can. plus birthday craziness. september is really dreadful as far as being overwhelming. first is my mom’s birthday, then hannah’s, then school starts, then ryan’s birthday and then sidney’s. and then the fair, which is a big deal around here too. just pure crazy for 4 full weeks pretty much. just typing that sentence made me a little panicky.

where to even start? i was progressing nicely to a well organized , prepared holiday. i finished all my shopping baking and knitting early. leaving me the week before christmas to clean my house, like really clean it, you know, mop the floors and everything, get ahead on laundry, and just chill with the kids and wait for the big day.

then i got a sore throat. we had been on the go, a late night on the 17th at the annual party at my mom’s school for kids and grandkids of the staff. a christmas party the morning of the 18th at a friends house from play group, she’s an ECE turned SAHM, and clearly insane, because she must have had 25 kids in her house for this party, complete with crafts and games and much chaos while all the moms sat in the kitchen and drank coffee….awesome. then an hour drive on the 20th for dinner with some of ryan’s family. ryan’s staff party the 21st, miss molly was big hit of course. but tired and not willing to sleep at the party, maybe if i hadn’t have left my beco at ryan’s aunts house she would have, but instead we left early and i went to bed early, suspect of my newly sore throat, but hoping some salt water and an early night would see it gone.

quick backround: 5 years ago, when olivia was a baby, i got strep at christmas, only i hadn’t had strep since i was a kid, didn’t even occur to me that might be what i had when my throat got sore and i started running a fever….i figured i had a cold. i let it go a long time before ending up in emerg. i was extremely sick by then, and olivia had it too. it ruined mine, and most everyone else’s christmas. it was truly horrible, and it made me forever paranoid of sore throats, never ever wanting to go through that again.

so luckily, i called doctor the very next day and she was still in the office, and she’s awesome, so she said, with the holidays coming, lets just start some antibiotics and screw the throat swab that takes days to get results. by catching it early with antibiotics and tylenol every four hours for the fever and pain, i was able to celebrate christmas like a mostly normal person. it definitely sidelined my well organized and prepared holiday, but it didn’t ruin it, so i call it a victory.

we had a nice, if not ridiculously hectic christmas. we travel too much. and we do too much on the 25th. it changes next year. but this is this year, so our day went like this. wake up and open gifts. have something to eat and the kids play for a bit until we head over to my mom’s and open gifts there. then she goes nuts trying to get a turkey dinner ready and i go nuts getting us packed up. then we pound a turkey dinner and pack up the kids for the ( hellish ) 4 hour drive to ottawa. we drive at night so the kids will sleep, it’s the only civil way to spend 4 hours in the car with small children believe me. and now we’re home and we still have to drive to my dad’s on the weekend.

we did have some fun while in ottawa this year, instead of just hanging around the house for several days, we took the kids to a museum and then the next day ryan and i took just sidney to the art gallery ( well, and molly of course, where the boobs go molly goes ) but it was nice to do something with just sidney, as the oldest she definitely gets the least one on one time with us. sadly, she found the art gallery to be pretty boring, but had fun getting away from her sisters for sure.

even though everyone did seem to make an effort to par it down this year, it still a huge amount of stuff. there is just no way around it with so many people buying for so many kids i guess. but good stuff. lots of craft stuff, and cool books. puzzles and games. extra cute flannel nightgowns ryan’s mom made ( which makes them even better of course ) and some toys too of course. our bargain of the year was definitely these little radio style mp3 players i found at winners. they are big and plastic and ugly, but they we 20$ and the kids love ‘em. they came with some kids songs and ryan put on some stories and some good old fashioned rock ( like early beatles ) and disney ballads and they are a big hit ( especially with olivia ). and no ear phones, that was imperative for me. speakers, much more annoying for us yes, but much less damaging to kids little ears. i cringe when i see kids with ear buds in, literally cringe.

so many highlights for me, hard to pick any. i cleaned up, ryan and my step dad made me beautiful things, ryan made me a beautiful mirror out of an old window frame. rusty made me a beautiful side table with and old sewing machine base. my mom and mil both gave me nice sweaters i love ( among other great things ). my sister managed to find two old collections of fairytales, grimms and andersons, at a used bookstore after i had said i’d like something like that weeks ago.

molly got a few little things, but the teething necklace i ordered after seeing it on ashley’s page is the cutest. really a baby in a necklace? too frikken funny. so adorable.

and my blurb book was a big hit, coming just in the nick of time, on the 22nd. really wishing i hadn’t finally got of my ass and printed all 500 of those pictures i just did, that are still sitting in the original bag, still out of order ( most annoying part of having pictures printed for sure ) because blurb, so much better. i may just start over from the beginning and switch everything over to books.

all in all a good holiday. if you made it this far you’re a hero. must get through spell check and post because baby is sitting with dad, but getting closer and closer to realizing she’s hungry.

Apparently i spoke way too soon when i said that we all escaped unscathed from our incident with The Flu. Olivia had a strange and intermediate version of it about a week later, she would have one symptom for a day or so then be fine for a day or so, then next symptom. Very odd. And she definitely has the nagging cough which sidney never had. And she is definitely The Child Most Likely To Infect, so i should have known that it would be olivia, she of no personal space not even in the face of flu germs, that would give me the flu. I’m guessing it was the morning that i rolled over thinking ryan had slept through his alarm only to find olivia had crawled into bed with me, breathing her flu all over me while i slept. Sigh.

So i have spent 6 hellish days in the grips of death. Or so it felt at the time. That is the reason people get flu shots. Right in the thick of it, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would want to NOT avoid this hell if at all possible. But then it’s hard to have any kind of perspective or reason with a raging fever and an entire body ache. Of course the main symptoms only lasted a couple days, unfortunately the ability to retain any kind of calories escaped me for quite a bit longer. For 5 days literally anything but water went right through me. So i existed on water. And fat stores i guess. And i slept and was cold and dizzy a lot. Oh yeah, don’t forget the part where i’m still nursing a baby all of the time. So if you think any of those fat store calories were going to me, think again. By sunday night i’m not even sure there were many going to the baby who was also sleeping a lot, and running a low temperature of all things. Like me….cold and tired…..and calorie starved. I wonder just how long you can nurse a baby without taking in any calories anyway? Thankfully monday became the day i started eating again. Slowly. Cautiously. And now, on wed, i almost feel like i human again. And hey, it’s not all terrible….i bet i lost at least 5 pounds, it’s the pre-holidays swine flu crash diet.

Except i also lost a week. A week i couldn’t really afford to loose. Now i’m not sure i’ll get all of my knitting done in time. And the mountain of laundry is truly daunting. Laundry is daunting around here all of the time. I do at least one load every sinlge day. So imagine after one week what kind of back load i’m looking at. Ryan did his very best to step in while i spent most of the last week in bed. He cooked, he “cleaned” ( as only men can, really, what is the deal with that? It’s another entry all together ) but he doesn’t do laundry, so it’s really really behind. Plus i planned to be putting up decorations this weekend. How can i do that when the house is a mess?

Ahh the mess. While i was sick, ryan got a more realistic insight into the life of the stay at home mom, and safe to say, one thing we are both 150% fed up with is constant mess. I can’t live in mess. I know some people can. I can’t and i won’t. And if my kids won’t start picking up after themselves, then i have told them i will get rid of every thing…..all off it. Because we have talked to them about it more times then i can count, it just never seems to make an impact, so I’ll leave them with one doll each and books. No toys no mess. I am so sick of toys strewn about constantly. Too many toys. No respect for any of it. I am having serious purge urges. I WANT to get rid of it all. I want to see if it would even make a difference to them. Would they then learn to appreciate all that they have? Bah, i doubt it. But we’ll find out because i am so not kidding around this time. We already started the first bag last night. Anything not picked up after it’s played with gets put in a garbage bag then put in the basement for me to decide it’s fate from there.

Oh, and thanks to the perfect tidbit of info from the always lovely ashley ( the fact that i could do the book layout on my own computer was the clincher ) i did download the program from blurb ( it took a whopping 3 hours…..hahahaha ) and i did put together the book, i hope it looks as good in person. Now i just have to get it saved to my memory stick and into my friends place to upload it, hopefully tomorrow.

i’m still dizzy sometimes, and yesterday i thought i’d lay down for an hour and woke up 3 hours later. so i have to take it easy. but today is knitting and laundry.

i have decided to put off my attempts at learning to crochet ( again ) until after christmas. only because i have several gifts i want to make, and it makes sense to stick with what i already have a (semi)-grasp of. so i have a few different knitting projects on the go already. all fairly simple of course, next year if i want to get more complicated i better start in august. i am working with my first pattern, up until now it’s been scarves and blankets, straight knit, knit, knit. it’s a simple pattern, but a pattern all the same, and it’s coming nicely. i’m excited to be making gifts for people, it really is satisfying.

i was also thinking of possibly using one of those book printing sites to make up books of photos for the grandparents, has anyone used one of these? it seems like a bit of a daunting task the more i think about it, only because i can’t do it from here, being as we’re all hooked up to the world wide web like it’s 1994 and everything. i would have to take photo’s on a disk to a friends house and work the whole project there high speed style. and i have no ideas what kind of time i’m looking at as far as doing all the photo editing and layout stuff.

i gave in to my inner hipster yoga mom and bought molly sophie the other day. though i paid slightly less then that at our local fancy baby store, it was still a pricey chew toy. but since i have not bought a single thing for miss molly, aside from one new sleeper to come home in, i figured, what the hell.  i have to tell you, sophie recieved at least 20$ worth of love the very first day. babies really do love to chew sophie’s nuby little head. go figure.

today is an olivia home day, so also her little friend. i’ll be packing everyone up and we’re off to the early years center. finally. we had to skip last week since sidney was all fluey. she survived btw. quite nicely. she wasn’t even that sick. i mean, i don’t know for sure it was The Big Scary Flu of course, but considering it’s rampant around here, it’s a safe bet. and surprise surprise, it wasn’t Big or Scary, it was just the flu. and people are STILL asking if we’ll be getting the shot. even after we’ve all been exposed to it? really? gah.

the early years center has started the pizza lunch wednesdays again, so i think we’ll be taking advantage of that today too. then when we get home hannah and molly ( hopefully) can go right to bed and the girls can go off an play and i can get some knitting done

i can’t even get a handle on how fast time is whipping by us these days. it was thanksgiving and all of the sudden it was halloween and i just know that before we know it it will be christmas!

the last few weeks have been a blur of activity. halloween costumes were made, a baby blanket was knit, the resulting chaos that became the house with so many other projects on the go, was finally cleaned and organized. it was probably a good week after thanksgiving before i even got the extra tables out of my living room ( they actually came in handy when sewing halloween costumes )

i have another project to knit in the cue and i really want to start teaching myself to crochet, so those are my focus for november.

i just finished re-reading The Timetraveller’s Wife. so good.

sidney has the flu. I don’t know if she has THE flu, or just A flu, and truthfully i don’t really care. my kids are healthy, with no pre-existing conditions ( like asthma ) to complicate, they have strong immune systems (  the last time i can recall sidney barfing was in 2004 ) so i am really not scarred of THE flu, it’s a flu like any other flu. i do have minor concerns about the baby. sidney is to go nowhere near her. and i wash my hands before i pick her up every single time. and i will be keeping a very close eye on her for any fever or breathing issues and will take her into the doctor immediately if i notice any. hopefully we were careful enough soon enough that it will be a non-issue, there is nothing worse then a sick baby.

speaking of the baby…..she’s so big. i’m in full denial of her bigness. she can’t possibly be big enough for toys. but she is. her favorite is this little haba mouse. she loves to look at it while i shake it, she loves to talk to it and touch it and especially to chew on his little ears. she’s all slobbery smiles and giggles. she finds sidney especially funny. when sidney laughs, molly laughs. sometimes we tickle sidney just to get the baby laughing. i think she might be teething.

the girls had a great halloween, much trick or treating was done, much junk food was procured. sadly, being sick has kind of taken the fun out of it for sidney, who only got to enjoy her bounty sat. night and sun. morning before the headache set in. for now the supply is still ridiculous, but if she’s sick more then another day or so  i will stash away some of the goods for her before the other two ( and dad and i ) finish it off.

we missed the last farmers market, though i doubt there were many vendors, it was a dark and rainy day. we did make it last week though so i could stock up on macoons. if you like mac apples and ever find yourself with the opportunity to try a macoon do so. it’s a cross of a mac and some other apple i can’t remember. best apple ever. i pretty much bought out the apple guy, as many as i could fit in my crisper and ryans little beer fridge, now our apple fridge. i always look forward to late fall for the macoons.

and mondays, i look forward to mondays because it means dexter, pvr’d from last night.

another one survived ! this year everyone came here, which was especially nice for us being the only ones with small kids and a baby. at full attendance we think we’re around 35? but we have already gotten the whole family together twice this summer so not everyone made the trek for thanksgiving this year. we had about 25 this year. our great room still has all the furniture pushed to the sides with four full sized tables set up in the middle. the kids enjoyed having their own personal tables to sit at for cereal this morning.

even with two ovens and stoves, it was still madness at the end to get everything ready and on the tables, partly due to the fact that we had our very own turkeys, and so with 25 people we felt we had to cook two to be on the safe side. so we had a turkey in each oven. but everyone still pretty much ate at the same time. grandpa made one of the ducks too, i didn’t try it, but word on the street was it was good. i ate a small bit of stuffing, with hopes miss molly won’t pay too much ( and make me pay ). to compensate i passed completely on the super garlicky caesar salad…..the things we do for babies!

the girls had so much fun. it’s exciting for me to see them getting older and more comfortable with everyone. they love love love playing with all my teenage cousins, and they all play with them tirelessly, that is a good bunch of teenagers i tell you. they are all so great with my girls it’s crazy. we did have plans to set the playstation up for teenagers after dinner, but apparently too much fun was being had with the connect four and perfection games to care. ( the perfection game is old school, found at value village and then ryan managed to get it working when it was discovered to not in fact work )

the baby was passed around endlessly, and everyone marvelled at how big she seems already. the girls shamelessly hawked their school fundraiser magazines and received many compliments on their paper bag turkey centerpieces and fall coloured paper chains strung up everywhere. just a great day.

and this afternoon we’re off to my dad’s, for ham instead of another turkey. but first i think there is a piece of pumpkin pie with my name on it. holidays mean pie for breakfast around the harmer family.

well, much fun was had in the big city. restaurants, hotel rooms, fancy dresses and dancing. it’s all good. the wedding was lots of fun though ryan and i were a little disappointed to be in toronto and not get to “do anything” like visit friends or head out to kensington or something……we had originally thought we might sunday, but man oh man, hannah ( mostly ) was just way to tired after her long night so we just headed home. it has inspired me though,  i really want to go for a few days with no “event” to do so we can just take the kids and do some fun stuff in the city.

tomorrow is the fair. everyone is pretty excited. hope it’s as fun as it was last year.

on my way to get the mail yesterday i ate an apple of the tree in the driveway. delicious. last year the apples weren’t much, there are several trees around. but this year for whatever reason, the one in the driveway is full of good sized apples. now the lowest and most ripe ones are wormy, but the ones that aren’t are pretty darn good. so we need to get out there with a ladder and start picking. i also need to go pick the pears as well, there is a good lot of them, and i learned last year, they are better small and still kind of red/hard. i don’t know why, but once they turned fully green, they were kind of yucky. and i’m not sure if i spy a few green apples on the tree out the window just this minute, supposedly some kind of heritage apple tree according to the previous owners, but last year it didn’t have any apples at all, i’m definitely going to check it out this morning though.

our poor garden is much neglected and completely overtaken with weeds. this was just not a good year for us. ryan working so much at a new job, me pregnant and miserable or busy with an infant ( and so far from miserable about it ) but even in it’s completely neglected state, we still had some peas, beans, beets, and a lot of amazing potatoes. and of course the crazy garlic, all 150 of them or something like that. i think tomorrow if i can leave molly in grandma’s charge for a bit i’ll forage for anything else that managed to survive, who knows, i may find some squash or something.

but not today, because today is supposed to be the only hot day this week and we’re going to the cottage. when you only get one nice day every 10 or 15, you gotta take advantage of it ( aside from the fluke heat wave while we had our company of course, a whopping 6 days of hot weather in a row !! )

and then it’s sept. wow. sept is always a nutty month for us. with 4 birthdays, school starting and the fair which has become a bit of a family event. but this year we also have a wedding. crazy.

last weekend was my grandma’s 75th birthday. so we all got together and had professional portraits taken, which was hectic but cool. i wonder what the final head count was? i’ll have to find out, probably around 30……lots of good fun and good food. my girls had a blast dressing up fancy, getting their nails painted, and then changing back into their regular clothes to play basketball and football with all my teenage cousins. that’s some good balance ! and grandma laid out a whole table of random china and other bits and pieces she wanted us to all take. i took two tea cups for myself and one for each girl. apparently it was popular to collect single teacups so grandma had a lot of them, all different. i also took a cut glass pickle plate and creamer/sugar set and a china platter that was a wedding present. the only one i got a story on was the platter from her wedding, so next time she’s here i’ll have to see if any of the cups i took has it’s own story.

okay, must go pack for the cottage.

we had a lovely one. normally we go out for brunch, my mom, the girls and i, but this year i was remiss in setting that up early enough and by the time i tried all the places in town were booked. but my step dad made us an amazing waffle brunch instead, better food, didn’t have to leave the house….good deal. i did miss getting dressed up and going out with the girls, but it was a cold and miserable day anyway, a far cry from the pictures i have from past years of them in their spring dresses. ( it is 0 degrees right now too as a small aside about the craptastic weather btw. freaking cold )

he also made us a turkey dinner, so with my day free of cooking all together, ryan and i took full advantage of the stay in side weather and lugged ( well he lugged, i supervised of course ) baby stuff up from the basement. 6 weeks. that can seem very long, or very short. and i have a lot of baby laundry to do. and i made black out curtains for all the girls windows, i had some modified versions from our old house we made due with last year, but with the big sale on a fabric land this weekend, it was time for some “made to fit” ones.

i have the get the girls up for school very soon, but i wanted to say a happy mothers day, to all of us, who have chosen to sleep ( and i use the term loosely ) on someone else’s time table, to never again eat a hot meal, and who have traded personal space and quiet for endless chatter and slobbery kisses. us, the archivers of the endless artwork, the finder of the lost “favorite” toys. to all those who have surrendered to infinite laundry and craft mess and toy chaos.

happy mothers day. i hope all your homemade cards and crafts from school were as funny and amazing as mine.

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.