Archive for August, 2007

Can’t sit still

August 28, 2007 · Filed under Life in General

 So I can complain about how my kids are so busy and loud and they don’t sit still, but I think inner mind is trying to keep up with them. 2 days in a row I have woken up desperately wanting to stay home, but feeling the pull to go out and do something. I need to go grocery shopping, I want to go clothes shopping, I’m back on the aquarium kick so I want to go look at aquariums, I could probably come up with some other reasons to get myself out of the house. And yet…I really don’t want to go out. I don’t want to haul the kids in and out of the van a bunch of times, I don’t want to go walk around somewhere as it exhausts me, and I really do want to get some laundry and dishes done! I haven’t decided yet if I’m going anywhere today. It’s still only 9:30, so I’m not in a rush. Although, if I were to go somewhere, I could get it done fast and be home in plenty of time for lunch, when usually I’m leaving the house around 11. I just can’t decide. And the last 2 times we have sat down to watch a movie, I have started to get antsy part way through and had to stand and fidget to get through the rest of the show. Mind you, it was Charlotte’s Web (I already knew what was going to happen) and The Constant Gardener (which just drug on and on and on and on and on and on and on … and, you get my point?) so I guess that could explain it a little bit.

I had 2 very successful high school reunions this weekend. Not the big reunion kind, but just that I hung out with 2 different girls (at different times) that I went to high school with and haven’t really spoken to since. On Friday night I went to another friend’s gig with a lady that I went to junior high and high school with, and we were pretty close in school, and it was so much fun to see her and hang out with her again. I love it when you can have those friendships that even though you haven’t seen each other in a year, or spoken much at all in 6 years, it’s still like yesterday when you do sit down to chat. She just moved back to Edmonton and I’m so excited at the prospect of a new/old friendship blossoming! I also went for lunch yesterday with MyKidsDad and the kids and an old friend from high school and her new husband who were in town for their wedding reception. We had a great time, and it was so great to catch up with her. I was worried that it might be awkward becaus we haven’t talked in 6 years but it was totally great! We actually have a lot in common and her new husband is really great. I hope I get to see her again soon, she lives about 3 hrs drive away from me.

That’s all I have today.

And could someone please explain what I posted that was so questionable that today, and today alone I already have three search engine terms for “naked mom with kids picture” reffering perverts to my blog?? Three!!!

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In which drawer do you keep your forks?

August 22, 2007 · Filed under Homemaking, Kids, Life in General, Pregnancy

With that kind of headline you might think that this post is about some quirky personality survey. Like, if you keep your forks in the drawer next to the refrigerator then you’re a meat-loving animal killer.

Well, sorry to disappoint you. I was just wondering because in this chaos that we call home I can’t seem to find a clean one right now. Right now, when I really really need one. I figure if I’m going to stab it in my eye, I at least should use a clean one. I wouldn’t want an infection or anything. So I guess the only thing holding me back from stabbing a fork in my eye is … well … not having one. A fork that is, not an eye. I have an eye. In fact, I have two. One on the left, one on the right. It between is my nose, in case you were wondering.

Yes, I am babbling and avoiding the subject of why I might want to put a fork in my eye. No, not put. Stab. Stab. MyKidsDad has been away less than 48 hours and I’m about to go bonkers. My kids are so loud. They don’t stop for a second. And I can’t keep up. And it’s exhausting. And now, not only are they tiring me out with all of their activity, I am starting to feel the baby move too. I can’t even lay down and be still by myself, because there is still movement going on inside of me. Is there any rest for the weary? I’ve heard not.

Does anyone have some rubber cement that they can teleport to my house right now? I need some, and I don’t feel like taking these monkeys out of the house. I suppose I have no choice. Do you think the people at the store will look down on us if Lil’Miss’s hair is all messy, and her shirt is all jammy from supper? Do you think they will care if my eyes are all red and puffy and there’s mascara smeared on my white sweater? I think today, I am past the shame. I don’t even care.

I’m sure I will run into someone I know. That’s just how these kind of days work. I’ll keep you posted.

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The Curse

August 20, 2007 · Filed under Kids, Life in General

MyKidsDad travels every now and then to another city about 5 hours away for business. The Boy and I used to go with him every now and then when he was little(r), that was, until The Curse began.

The first time it happened The Boy had had a fever the night before, and I just blew it off as teething or who-knows-what. On the drive we began to realize something was wrong. He was getting crankier and crankier, until we pulled over, and there was a huge chunk of ear wax coming out of his ear. So I thought maybe he had an ear infection. Over the course of the next 24 hours it was getting so bad that he was just sleepy and cranky all constantly – so we decided to take him to the local walk-in clinic. (Oh, don’t get me started on my loathe for walk-in clinics) The doctor said he didn’t see an ear infection, but that he noticed a bit of tenderness in his tummy, and said we’d have to go to the hospital for some tests. He said he’d phone the hospital while we were on our way, so that we wouldn’t have to wait long and would get in right away.

You know how in the emergency room, it’s basically one big room with a bunch of beds behind curtains? Well this one was like that too, except for the one old back examining room, that looks like it hadn’t been used/cleaned since 1990. There was garbage on the floor, and a toilet in the same room – the toilet paper was almost half rolled off the roll and all over the floor. MyKidsDad basically stood there the whole time we were in there (a few hours) and held The Boy. We were afraid to put him on the examining table. If they couldn’t clean up obvious garbage, why would they sanitize the bed? Anyways, long story short, we spent all night in the hospital, the 2nd doctor didn’t see an ear infection and found that his urine test was messy and thought that maybe he had a kidney infection and MyKidsDad (6′2″, 135lbs) and I slept on a one person cot in his hospital room. Oh, wait, did I say slept? My bad. We didn’t sleep much at all. The pediatrician came in in the morning (they didn’t have one working at night) and I told him, just like I had told all the other doctors, that I thought he had an ear infection. Sure enough, he takes one look in his ear, get’s a cotton swab to clean it out, and a gush of fluid comes rushing out and he says “yep! It’s an ear infection!” MyKidsDad and I could’ve strangled the other two doctors. Anyways, I guess it was an outer ear infection, which is different, usually an ear infection is inner ear, so they just weren’t looking properly. We went home early, right after leaving the hospital.

The next time we went, we hadn’t been there more than 1hr and The Boy had puked all over the (carpeted!) floor in the restaurant, in the middle of our meal! He threw up again 3 or 4 more times that night, but appeared to be okay the next day. We decided to stay because we all felt fine…until about 3am, when I started throwing up. I then proceeded to empty my guts once an hour for the next 12 hours, to the point of almost complete dehydration and looking like a crack addict. I have never been so nauseas in my life. JUST as we arrived home, MyKidsDad started to get sick. My mom came and took The Boy (as he was mostly better) and left us at home to get better. It was awful, one of the worst times we’ve all been sick.

Well, ever since then we decided that it was a Curse and that we were never going back. It’s been at least 2 years since we’ve gone with him, and so we decided that this time we were going to go! Guess what happened? We are due to leave first thing tomorrow morning, and The Boy gets sick last night. Threw up a few times, cried and cried and cried about how much his tummy hurt. This morning he is completely fine, but we should not be fooled. We’ll wait until tomorrow morning to decide if we’re going to go. I think maybe he ate some bad yogurt before bed last night, and that’s what did it. But you never know. I’m still afraid of The Curse.

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Virus Alert

August 16, 2007 · Filed under Lyrics

Thanks to my lovely sister, this song is forever running through my mind and it will not get out!!! However, it is exceptionally hilarious. You kind of have to hear the music to go with it to make it that extra bit of funny though. It’s by none other than the fabulous Weird Al Yankovic.

Hey, everyone, listen up, your attention if you please
We wanna give you a warning
‘Cause I found out this morning
About a dangerous, insidious computer virus
If you should get an email with the subject, ’stinky cheese’
Better off protecting your chances
Under no circumstances, should you open it
Or else it will

Translate your documents into Swahili
Make your TV record “Gigli”
Neuter your pets, and give your laundry static cling
Look out!
It’s gonna make your computer screen freeze
Look out!
Erase the Easter eggs off your DVDs
Look out!
Erase your hard drive and your backups too
And the hard drive of anyone related to you

Virus alert!
Delete immediately before someone gets hurt!
Forward this message on to everybody

Soon, very soon, it will make all the paint peel off your walls
It’ll make your keyboard all sticky
Give your poodle a hickey
And invest your cash in stock in Euro Disney
Then, it will tie up your phone, making prank long-distance calls
It’ll set your clocks back an hour and start clogging the shower
So just trash it now, or else it will

Decide to give you a permanent wedgie,
Legally change your name to Reggie,
Even mess up the pH balance in your pool

Look out!
It’s gonna melt your face right off your skull
Look out!
And make your iPod only play Jethro Tull
Look out!
And tell you knock-knock jokes while you’re trying to sleep
Look out!
And make you physically attracted to sheep
Look out!
Steal your identity and your credit card
Look out!
Buy you a warehouse full of pink leotards
Look out!
Then cause a major rift in time and space
And leave a bunch of Twinkie wrappers all over the place
That’s right it’s a

Virus alert!
Delete immediately before someone gets hurt!
Forward this message on to everybody

Virus alert!
Delete immediately before someone gets hurt!
Forward this message on to everybody
Warn all your friends, send this to everybody
Tell everyone you know, tell everybody now

If you get infected, you’ll wish you had never been born
So before it emails your grandmother all of your porn
Turn off your computer and make sure it powers down
Drop it in a forty-three-foot hole in the ground
Bury it completely; rocks and boulders should be fine
Then burn all the clothes you may have worn any time you were alive!

Virus alert!
Delete immediately before someone gets hurt!
Forward this message on to everybody

Virus alert!
Delete immediately before someone gets hurt!
Forward this message on to everybody

Virus alert!
Delete immediately before someone gets hurt!
Forward this message on to everybody
Warn all your friends, send this to everybody
Tell everyone you know, tell everybody now
What are you waiting for?
Just hurry up and forward this to every single person that you know!
Hit send right now!

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Those nasty reptiles.

August 15, 2007 · Filed under Christianity, Kids, Life in General

The camp that I grew up going to has family camp on right now, and my dad and step mom and their 2 kids still go every year. So usually one day in the week I’ll take the kids out there for swim, a round of mini golf, and some good times. It’s amazing how much the dynamic changes over 10 years or so. When we started going I was a preteen, and the camp was mostly filled with families with kids ages 12-17 and then there were a fair bit of younger ones too. Either way, it just seemed a lot fuller when I was a kid. Now it’s just a bunch of moms (not complete families) and all kids under the age of 10. I think there are lots of reasons to blame for this. 1. The preteens/teens are too busy/cool to go to camp with their parents. (although when I went? We ditched the ‘rents and had some great times!) 2. The economy being so demanding/competitive as it is in my area makes it difficult for dad’s to take the week off – their priorities for vacation are on a ‘real’ vacation, not camp. 3. It used to be mostly families from the church, and it has since grown into more of an outreach camp to single moms, or other families.

It has also become almost totally exclusive to the one church (out of about 5). This wasn’t intentional or anything, I think it just kind of worked out that way. So now, the majority of families at camp are from that church, or been invited by someone from that church. So that changes the dynamic for adults too, when they all already know each other. PLUS, when it’s all families with really young children, all the adults end up being occupied looking out for their kids and unable to have a good conversation with someone.

Anyways, not really what I wanted to blog about, but there it is. The kids (not mine) yesterday found some salamanders under the trampolines. They were all handling them and taking them to different spots and what not. I thought this was a little gross, but whatever, kids are kids, and a salamander isn’t something you see everyday in the wild. So at lunch time my dad made this big announcement about how salamanders can carry disease on their skin that if touched without washing can make you very very sick and even prove fatal. After that my step mom informed me of a little boy who touched his pet iguana and didn’t wash afterward and was sick for like, 5 years. I think I might be on the Slow Train or something because I did NOT know this! I mean, I’ve never owned a reptile before, or known anyone who has, so I guess maybe that’s the reason. So I hope all the kids washed their hands! Yick!

I also found out that a friend of mine is pregnant again! So exciting! She thinks she’s about as far along as I am – and she would know – this is her 8th child! She has seven boys. If I had to pick a mom hero, she’d be it! Her kids are so great to each other – I mean, they’re boys, and they wrestle each other and stuff, but they always look out for each other. And they’re really great kids, very respectful, and very obedient! She does such a great job! Oh, and did I mention that she’s like a size 3? She’s about as far along as I am, and you can’t even tell that she’s pregnant yet. Me, I’m sticking out to ‘here’ already. Mind you, I show early, always have. When I was leaving she told me “Next time we see each other we’ll both be fat!” I just laughed and told her that I have a huge headstart on her. She pops out in the last 10 or 12 weeks of her pregnancies and just gets a little basketball and then she’s done. She’s just got amazing insides, she doesn’t have super tiny babies or anything! She usually gets pregnant right away again after her last baby is done nursing, and it took a bit longer than usual this time, so we are all rejoicing! How exciting! And of course, we’re praying for a girl!

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Headaches

August 12, 2007 · Filed under Kids, Life in General

I’ve been suffering from severe headaches almost since the onset of my pregnancy. I’ve been trying to ‘just deal’ and not medicate myself silly, because, y’know it’s not good for baby and all. The headaches are a combination of hormonal headaches, migraines, tension headaches and sinus headaches. I literally have had one of every kind, according to the symptoms of where it hurts on my head. Most often though, they’re tension and sinus. I have a sinus issue that predates pregnancy, and, pretty much my life, as my dad suffers from regular sinus pain along with my siblings and I’m sure somewhere before my dad, although, we can just blame him for starting it. Be righteous in our ignorance, or something like that.

Anyways, my tension headaches become worse and worse as the pregnancy progresses and my body changes and realigns itself in a whole new way and just completely ruins my 17 year old figure. (Although it has been missing for almost 5 years, maybe never to be seen again, at least without the aid of a plastic doctor, and I don’t mean a figurine.) I’m hoping the sinus headaches will go away soon. The massages only help so much, and I have found that I am immune to Tylenol. I think I took it too much as a kid/teen that it just doesn’t work anymore. It doesn’t even take the edge off. The only thing that I know works is Ibuprofin, but the concerned pregnancy people tell me that it’s bad to take when you’re pregnant. According to my doctor it is simply unstudied and ‘risky’ but nothing really proven as to what those risks are. This I didn’t know when I was pregnant with my first, The Boy, and I took Ibuprofin right through the pregnancy. Other than being incredibly talkative and demanding, he’s fine. Whether or not that’s related to Ibuprofin, we’ll never know until they do the studies. I heard half way through my first trimester with my second, Lil’ Miss, that I wasn’t supposed to take it during the first trimester – and then it would be ok. So I’m sure I took it for the rest of the pregnancy with her too. (Although my specific recollection of what drugs I ingested is vague.) So now I’ve heard that you’re not supposed to take it at all, and that it can cause heart problems if you take it in the third trimester. (As far as I know my *born* kids hearts are fine.) So I’m almost (but not completely) guilted out of taking it this pregnancy. I mean, I want…I need to feel better in order to accomplish daily living tasks but Ibuprofin is my only saving grace. I also started drinking more water – did I mention that already? That has helped some too, only in decreasing the number of headaches I get, not the severity. Once it’s here, it’s here to hurt, and it’s here to stay.

So the other night, I gave up, as I was almost in tears from pain and couldn’t go on any longer. And, I popped that sweet, sweet pill. And you know? Within 20 minutes my headache was almost completely gone – at least the intense pain that I felt before was gone, and it probably still hurt some but compared to before it felt like it was gone. And now I’m hooked. What do I do? Has anyone heard about what a bad mom I am for taking risky drugs while I’m pregnant? I’d feel horrible, actually, terribly horrible, words couldn’t even describe, if I knew that my kid was born or had a permanent physical/mental problem because I was negligent while I was pregnant…at the same time, how do I live daily with these headaches? I mean, they are almost daily, and it’s affecting my mood, my appetite, my energy, everything, and therefore affecting my 2 kids and my husband! Is it fair to my kids and my husband and myself to put this strain on us, or is it fair to my unborn baby to take a drug that makes me up to the task of living but may-possibly-who-knows-probablynot-butmaybe hurt them?

Answer? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

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Take it easy.

August 8, 2007 · Filed under Life in General

So first, let me lament about how much I dislike the local Wal-Mart.

There is one such store about a 5 minute drive from my garage. However, I almost always refuse to visit it. The people who planned it way underestimated the Wal-Mart need for my area. I live in a very dense area, tonnes of joint housing, majority of it occupied by people considered “low income”. Thus, taking advantage of Wal-Mart’s famous low prices, everyday. They built the entire thing too small, from each individual department straight down to the parking lot size. It’s constantly in a state of complete disarray, whether it be from the inability to hire enough employees with the boom of industry going on here, or whether it’s just the inability to keep up with the volume of people coming in and out of the store everyday.

When I plan my trips to Wal-Mart, I make the 17 minute drive to the Wal-Mart in a small(er) outerlying community of my city, in order to escape the chaos that is the store near my house. I drove there this morning to get everything I needed, but I forgot my list. This means I forgot to get some stuff. I decided I was too lazy to go back to the Good Wal-Mart, so I just headed to the one by my house.

It wasn’t a total mistake, I mean, I was fine. Like normal, you have to navigate in and around people who just stop randomly in the middle of the isle – why, oh why do you people do this?! Pull over! You are not the only one in the store! – and then you have to wait in line to pay for your items for at least 10 minutes. Of course, I picked the line that someone needed an ‘override’ for – whatever that means – and so I’m stuck waiting even longer. This mostly doesn’t aggravate me. I mean, I’m a little chapped that I have to wait longer, but what am I gonna do, right? If I really needed to get somewhere fast, I’d save my breath/time from trying to yell somebody into hurrying up and just leave. So this lady standing at the till, after the cashier called for the override about 35 times, says “that’s it, I will go and find somebody to do this override!!” and storms away as though she has some sort of magical Override Finding Power. She comes back and says in a mocking tone “Well, you’ll just have to wait like everybody else!!” About 3.5 seconds later the manager comes, does the override in an overly chipper manner and walks off. Now, what was the point of getting all worked up over 3.5 minutes?

I just wonder why people don’t let a little more stuff just roll off their back. I think we would all live a little longer if we’d at least cancel out some of the stress in our lives that really doesn’t need to be stressful. I mean, I just stood there and waiting patiently, made funny faces and giggled with Lil’ Miss, and generally was just fine. This lady just caused herself and the cashier a whole lot of distress that was totally useless! It didn’t get her anywhere any faster, and just seemed to magnify the problem. I’m sure it took her a while to calm down, when if she just would have said “hey, no problem, these things happen” she’d be leaving more relaxed then otherwise.

So next time, you have to wait in line for something, don’t torture the minimum wage cashier with your antics and complaining, just wait patiently and you can all leave a little happier. It’s better for your health. And you just end up looking like the idiot, especially when you’re trying to ilicit the sympathy of those around you by turning around and making cracks like “huh, some service” meanwhile making sure the cashier hears you. You are just embarassing yourself.

The End.

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