Elisa’s Day

to say thanks for the suggestions everybody, keep ‘em coming too. even though i’m not commenting, i’m reading them when i can, which right now is not too often. our laptop died on wed. and is in now, hopefully being diagnosed and fixed soon. until then i probably won’t be online, just dropped in on a friend to check my email.

spent most of the long weekend in the gardens, both of the vegetable and flower variety. i’ve learned to embrace the gardening ( not that i had any choice really ) but once i realized i could overcome my minor bug phobia by just wearing gloves all the time ( it literally makes my skin crawl when a bug touches me……in a completely illogical way, which is what makes it a phobia i guess ) it all got much much easier. so with my MIL’s help we got it 90% of the veggies planted and made some real headway on the ridiculously huge flower gardens. all that is left for the veg garden is a second planting of some things to stagger it a bit, and to put the tomato seedlings in after they spend another week or so hardening off.  this year, after two failed attempts at tomatoes on our own, ryan found a local woman that sells heirloom seedlings. so he went at got some and they look great, i really hope we get some tomatoes this year. now if it could just rain, that would be great. until we get some rain to fill the shiny new rain barrel, situated conveniently off the garden shed roof, right in the garden, it’s several trips back and forth to the house with watering cans each time we water, which in this heat is also, several times a day.

this morning before it got too hot, i dug out all the “soil” around our front walkway. which was really less soil, and more this weird gravel of busted up clay pots. see, the previous owners seemed to want as much garden with as little work as they could possible have. so instead of actual weeding, they instead employed every wacky gimmick and trick they could think of to keep the weeds down, which in the end, is just making the lives of those of us who don’t want they crazy, scrubby, invasive ground cover heavy, type garden going on, well…..hellish. everywhere you dig there are buried tarps and rocks, bricks and anything else they could “put down” to keep weeds from coming through. including copious amounts of busted up clay pots. each time we get rid of some ridiculous invasive thing ( first year, lambs ear, last year brown eyed susan, this year i don’t know, a bunch of other crap ) we uncover all this stuff that was getting choked out, including several lovely variegated hostas. which i can’t transplant to beside my walkway until i dig out the clay pot gravel. oh well…..small steps.

and now, can anyone offer any advice as to what to do about small kids and bugs, mosquitoes mostly, but other biting/stinging ones as well? for myself i cover up completely and use spray when i’m out in the early morning before the heat chases them away. but trying to get them to cover up when it’s already 20 degrees at 7am is pretty much impossible, and i am very reluctant to use bug spray on kids and they have all inherited their mothers crazy histamine reaction to being bit unfortunately. hannah was outside this morning for about 3 minutes before she had 4 HUGE mosquito bites and was stung by something worse. i didn’t see it, but she yelped and there was a chunk missing in the center and clear liquid oozing out so i’m thinking bee or more likely deer fly. then it took about 45 seconds for her whole leg to swell up so i dosed her with some benadryl which took the swelling down but now she’s zonked on the couch. i know some people just react worse then others. if i get a tiny spider bite, it is excruciatingly itchy and will last for weeks. my step father rarely gets bit by anything, and when he does it doesn’t bother him and is gone in a couple days. but the girls are like me. they seem to attract them and then react to them.

last year there were countless incidents of majour swelling and many itchy nights spent treating tired kids with multiple bites and last year we weren’t even gardening like we will be this year or had the weather i think we’re going to have this year…….so since i see a lot, a lot of time outside in our future, especially in mosquito heavy places like the garden, i would really like to know what anyone else does for their kids to keep bites to a minimum

i had a bunch of pictures to go with this entry, of the gardens, what we’ve got done, what still needs to be done……but they are just loading way too slow, so i give up. stupid dial up.

miss molly had me up at 5am this morning. but since that was the first time she had me since going to bed around 10 last night, i’ll take it !! man. there are no words that can describe with any justice how good it feels to get a solid 7 hours sleep. lets leave it at that.

so here i sit, house quiet, kids still in bed, drinking my coffee, staring out the window behind the laptop. reminds me of last spring. baby wasn’t here yet, ryan and i were sharing the van, and on days i needed to have it, i’d get up at 5 and drive him to work ( before you call social services, don’t forget grandma and grandpa are here too, nice that there is pretty much always someone in the house for just such occasions ). those mornings were so much nicer then the rushed mornings when my alarm goes off at 630 and it’s straight into the morning routine. though clearly, not nice enough for me to just set my alarm earlier and get up earlier every day …….haha……

the calm is nice. because the rest of my days are feeling a little…..well, insane. it’s just that time of year. so much to do outside,  on top of the so much there always is to do inside. it’s hard to keep on top of it all. today i definitely have to do a big clean, since we have ryan’s mom and stepdad coming for the long weekend. there going to help out, ryan’s mom will be helping us get the garden in and his stepdad will be doing some odd jobs. and the last week or so, since the weather turned nice again, we have just been outside every free second, in the flower gardens, and keeping on top of the berrys we planted last fall so they don’t get choked out by grass….add in the odd play date and that’s it. something had to give. the house is the only logical thing. someday, my kids will be older and my house will be clean again. this is what i keep telling myself anyway.

hannah went with a friend to his gymnastics class this week. it’s a ploy, “bring a friend day” obviously, to get new kids signed up. and it may have worked for us. hannah just really loved it a lot. and we stopped doing kindergym a couple years ago because it was just too expensive to have three kids signed up all the time. but i could put just hannah in the last 6 weeks of class for a pretty decent price. of course the other girls will be upset. but ryan pointed out that they are going to art classes this summer, and hannah is not ( too young ) so maybe that evens things out. maybe also, it just can’t always be all fair all across the board. i think i will sign her up.

the art classes…..so excited. one of the employees at the early years center, heard me talking about staying at my dad’s on the march break and started talking about how much she loved it up there. how every summer she would rent a cottage and sign her kids up for these amazing art classes put on by the art college up there. the classes took up the morning and then then afternoon was spent on the beach. and i thought to myself, well that does sound pretty awesome. so i asked me dad to get me a brochure and found two classes i wanted to sign them up for. he even offered to pick up the tab for one, which was great (even though the prices were really very good too ) so it’s all set. in july we’ll be staying for 4 days and they’ll be taking “picasso pizazz” and in august it’s “pottery for kids” which, wow, how fun is that going to be? i thought about taking a pottery class too, but alas, they had no adult beginner classes. and the age group is 5-7 so they go in the same class which is nice for them, some sister fun time. and the littler girls and i will chill at grandpa’s on the beach for the am and the older girls have all afternoon on the beach as well. i am really looking forward to it ( though we will all miss ryan )

well, both older girls have wandered down, looking for breakfast, so i guess i better get moving, so i can get them off to school……. lots to do today.

well i hope everyone enjoyed their toast in bed breakfasts and home made gifts. i know i did. we even had strawberries in the house for a nice side to my toast and coffee ( a rare occurrence, i try and only buy them in season, but i wanted to decorate a cake i made a few days ago with some so we had leftovers…..they are c.r.a.p. compared to local ones of course, but after a long winter of basically apples and citrus fruit, they were still a nice treat ) and there was much beautiful art work of course as well. then all the girls headed out to brunch where my grandmother and sister met up with us. 4 generations of girls out for brunch. nice. did i get a picture you might ask? well of course not. the intentions were there. but between getting out the door on time and then a flurry of activity getting home ( involving a last minute stop with my sister for a gift for my mom, something she mentioned only the night before at dinner that she saw, finally giving me a solid gift idea to go with the tree we had already gotten here ) no picture was taken. sigh. we’ve been going out for brunch since olivia was a baby. and every year we take a picture. then last year we missed it altogether, this year forgotten picture…..next year i won’t forget.

ryan’s “gift” to me for mother’s day was to paint the bathroom !! Whoo Hoo!! our house is log, but all the interior walls are board and batten. my intention was always to paint them, but i just haven’t gotten to it yet. so finally the first paint was put on. and it just looks so, so good, and makes the room so, so much brighter that it’s all i can do to not just drop everything else and paint and paint until it’s all done. but at least it gives me real vision of how much lighter the house can be once we do get it done. i’ve been living in the cave long enough.  and even better, we picked up a new “eco” paint. it’s made from recycled paint and is low emissions but the very best part is, it’s $15 a gallon, regular price ! so that is awesome.

a quiet week planned so far. i am on a big cleaning and organizing mission. it really hasn’t ever been done since we moved here. so it is getting done now. and i am hoping to sell enough stuff on kijiji to make enough money to buy a wooden swing set for the girls. there is a beautiful cedar one at costco i would love, but it is pricey…..so we’ll see.

hannah is supposed to have swimming today, but she has been complaining about not feeling well all morning and just fell asleep on the couch, so i’m thinking we’ll skip it today. olivia is also on antibiotics for a throat infection……so it’s very likely she passed it along.

i have some bread sitting on the floor in the kitchen, in the sun, hoping it will rise. it’s always a challenge to get bread to rise in here when it’s cold. and make no mistake it is cold. two days after i pulled out all the kids winter clothes, you know it snowed. actual snow. and it’s been freezing at night ( literally, the kids water table is frozen ) but it isn’t supposed to last…..i hope i hope. it sure is annoying to hear the furnace kicking on in may.

every couple of weeks i realize it’s been too long since i took a picture, of any body yes, but especially of the baby, because well, it only takes a few weeks at this age to miss a whole stage. then i take a whole bunch.

having a laugh and showing off her teeth

enjoying the weather

and just being generally cute…..i love when the little baby hair starts to get long and they get the fluffy head going

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.