Elisa’s Day

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.

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.

it was a dark and stormy day, but with the older girls both off at school, ryan decided we needed to get out of the house for a little road trip. he found a farm that mills their own organic flour, and although it isn’t super close, it’s close enough, so after a few failed attempts to call and email them for info, we were told by another customer that just dropping by the farm is the best bet. so we decided to take our chances and headed out to peterborough, which is about 40 min. away and a much bigger town then we live in, for a bit of shopping.

the first stop was value village, a great place all around, but the BEST place for kids books. how wrong can you go with a huge selection of books for 1$ each, and as if that wasn’t good enough, it’s buy 4 get one free. nice. then a quick stop by aunt erin’s new place of employment, a used dvd/video game store, where we traded a couple bags of crappy movies bought in what could only be described as moments of clearly bad judgement and sitting in our basement wasting space, for some lovely cash. then off to the evil store that starts with “W ” for new rain boots for little girls, they practically had to swim to school today and there was some complaining of pinching toes in last years rain boots ( and new socks for the littlest girl, who will never need a pair of rain boots in her life as i’m pretty sure i have a pair in every size now and you just can’t wear those things out ) i’ve told ryan i really need a shelving unit in the basement just dedicated all the kids shoes and boots i have, so i could put them out by size so that i know what i have for who in what size for each season. it’s becoming a daunting collection all tossed into rubbermaid tubs to be dug through whenever the seasons turn.

then off to find the farm. which we did, and bought ourselves a big ass bag of organic flour ( 50 pounds i think ) all in all a successful trip.

and now a short half an hour until the new survivor, which i am excited about, as always.

at the library or the doctors, unfortunately.

the lindsay library leaves a lot to be desired. i have spent most of my time on the kids side, but the adult side is pretty sad. of the series that hillary recommended, they had only 4 of the 7 books, and none of them at the lindsay location, apparently they move books between all the libraries in the district and this all counts as the library’s”catalogue” . and i found nothing else you guys recommended either! for real. oh well, amazon is selling the whole series for 40$ so i mentioned to my mom that it would be a swell birthday present. until then maybe i’ll just work on my knitting and re-read the the Time Traveller’s Wife, and raid my mom’s book collection, even if most of it is still packed. but hey, the kids scored some much anticipated magic school bus books, and some robert munsch, so the library is still good for the under 12 crowd at least.

and, even though i was going to wait until tomorrow to start harassing my doctor about the sex of the baby, i caved and called today. and got the voice mail letting me know her office is closed for holidays until the 17th. yeah. that’s right. for real. soooo, to re-cap, first, the ultrasound tech won’t tell us, then the radiologist is on holidays so the results won’t get sent over right away, and then apparently my doctor goes on vacation so even if the results are there, there is no one to read them. well damn it. maybe baby four is supposed to be a surprise. to bad i’m not big on surprises. of course if i have to wait until the 17th, i might as well just wait until the 24th when my next actual appointment is ( that’s what i say, but much more likely i’ll start phoning her first thing in the a.m. on the 17th )

well it just wouldn’t be february in canada without the few days of faux melt off. you can almost taste the spring. the sun is shining, and for the first time in months you can feel the heat off it. and there are birds singing. and everything is melting away at an alarming rate. but alas, it is canada, and it’s only february, so unless you’re new around here you know that it’s all an illusion of spring,  just to make then next 6 weeks of winter in your future seem all that more hellish.

this is never a good time of year for me anyway, under the very best of circumstances, and, well,  raging hormones, a poorly heated house and cluster flies, even in the depths of winter, let alone the ever multiplying numbers the false spring has brought……well, those are so far from “the very best of circumstances” i can barely wrap my head around it. my point being, that i expect to be a more pleasant person again, once spring comes around, i just have to survive until that point.

and the february tease isn’t helping any. i mean i am basking slightly. how could you not. for the first time in months, it’s possible to go outside without being physically uncomfortable. because lets face it, no matter how well clothed you are, there is still some part of you exposed to the minus 30, and even if it’s only your face, it just doesn’t feel good. but i know it’s all going to fade back into minus 30 soon enough and that is so sad. plus i also know that there will be more snow. likely into april. depressing.

if canada had a warm place to call it’s own, i would live there ( and i said warm not slightly less cold and extra rainy, so please don’t suggest moving to the west coast )

next update will be about babies, i promise. but for now i’d really like some book recommendations ( hi lara ) because reading Twilight made me realize that i can and will find time to read, if the book is enjoyable enough, which i think the last few i read before that weren’t, so i just didn’t instead. ( not that they were bad books really, just not captivating enough to make me find the time when the time is so hard to find )

i just finished Water for Elephants too, from my mom.

well looks like ryan finally spilled the beans. so now you know why i have little to say lately. but hey, now i’m free to complain as much as i’d like about the main thing consuming my life. like, lets see,  how annoying it is to get winded climbing the stairs ( already )…… how none of my clothes fit ( already )…… how my legs hurt ( already ) …….how  my sciatic is acting up ( already )…..the fact i can hear my pulse in my ears if it’s too quiet ( crazy extra blood volume ) ………you know, the usual

oh, yeah, and my almost complete and utter annoyance with everything and everyone…..

i wouldn’t want to forget that one.

i had forgotten about that joyous symptom, but it all came rushing back to me about 3 seconds after the nausea passed ( oh hi!  rampant hormones, how nice to have you back again, how i missed getting teary eyed at every idiotic tv drama and being annoyed by people breathing too loud )

and of course, i try and rein it in as much as possible around strangers, friends, relatives and the kids, which leaves ryan to take the brunt of it, but then…..what’s that saying ryan likes so much…..oh yeah…….suck it up buttercup. as i have always told him,  he can complain and bitch all he wants any time he manages to grow a human.