Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all! We had a great holiday. We went to my mom and dad's place for a few days and visited most of the family. Betina's branch was dearly missed though. It was so nice to see everyone else, especially Eve and Sean who we don't get to see very often. We had a "pre Christmas" gift opening, and Abby's gem was, as she was opening yet another present, "I sure hope this one is not clothes!" It was really funny. I think kids like toys best, but the parents like it when they get clothes. Her favourite toys were the Barbies from Santa. I cannot believe I caved in to the Barbie thing. I always swore that no daughter of mine would have barbies.. But it makes her so happy. I think this is how Keith mush have felt when his dream of a Disney-free childhood for our kids was shattered....

I also got to see an old friend of mine! One of the very few people from my old SL life that I really missed. I have not seen her since my wedding, and it was really cool to have that visit. She has a little baby girl too, and it is just so neat to see your old friends in a new context. Instead of playing saxophone together and dodging Billy Onofrychucks spit bombs from his trombone, we were sitting side by side on matching recliners nuring our little girls and talking about spit up. I miss her.

Happy holidays all!

My little Ballerina

Yesterday was Abby's ballet recital. I am such a proud mummy! It was at a big theatre - not a gymnasium, a REAL theatre! With stage lights, curtains, stadium seating and everything!!

Abby was part of 2 preformances. One was with her class, a group of equally cute 3 year olds. They were all dressed up in their red bodysuits, a Christmas print tu tu, and curly ponytails. (Although, Abby has hair issues. Once again, I had hair envy of all of the other girls, with thick, flowing long ringlet-y hair, while Abby's barely goes into a half ponytail, and is so wispy that it does not stay...) Well, I felt much better when the music started, because Abby was the only one actually doing the dance steps! She was so good! The other girls were all distracted, staring into the lights, playing with their jingle bells, or fiddling with their ponytails. There was Abby, tapping her toes, doing her plies and jumps, and singing the words.

Her second time on stage was the preschool finale, where about 50 3 and 4 year olds stood on the stage and sang "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". All of the kids were lined up around the stage - sort of in a horseshoe shape, so that you could see all of them. Well, our cute little stagehog goes into the centre of the U, so that the kids are all in a horse shoe AROUND HER! And then she stands there dancing while all the other girls sing. Like they were all wishing Abby her very own personal Merry Christmas.

I was laughing and crying so much! What a little preformer she is! I am so proud of Abby.

I know, it is about time

Well, the day after my last blog, Mina was born! Right now, she is cuddled up in Abby's old sling and having a snooze. (I love the sling!!) She was born as planned, in Stony Plain, in a big ol tub of water, with no drugs, and with a midwife attending. It was the most awesome and indredible experience that I have ever had. I am still so awed by it all, that my body actually knew what it needed to do, and that I had the courage to let it. My labour was only 3 1/2 hours from start to finish, and everything went perfecftly, as it should. I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to have a midwife attend Mina's birth and take care of us. If you want to know all of the gory details, just call me up and I would love to tell you all about it. In fact, I seem to have become a tree hugging earth mom and just want to tell total strangers what a beautiful thing it was, while whipping out the boobs and nursing the baby anywhere. But I hesitate to talk about my vagina too much on the internet...

Things have been rather crazy around here, I am learning that having 2 children is a lot different than having just one. It takes a whole lot more planning and juggling, and really I have no clue how everyone else does it so well. I took the girls grocery shopping, and was so proud of myself, until I realized that with 2 kids, I had no room in the cart for groceries. There are a lot of tricks I still have to learn. I wonder if I will ever be on time for anything else in my life again. I used to be such a hard a about my patients who would show up for their appointments late. But now, I am beginning to understand...

Mina is a great baby, and Abby is doing incredibly well with all of the changes, and she is very happy (still) about being her big sister. I will post pictures soon.

No-Baby Update

Well, I am now a few days PAST my due date. I just wanted to update you all on what is not happening. I go in again on Wednedsday, to do a non-stress test, which just checks on how baby is doing. I get hooked up to a fetal monitor for 1/2 an hour or so. That is also the day we will schedule induction of labour, probably for the weekend sometime, if nothing has happened by then. The weird part is that I have been having early labour contractions for the past week - they are much more intense than the Braxton Hicks I have been getting the past 2 months... But I lay down to go to bed at night, and they go away. So, no news here.

I am very frusturated and irritable about it all, so please do not call me unless you want to chat about something other than the fact that I am still pregnant. If you call, and I answer the phone, you can be sure that nothing has happened. I will let you all know if anything happens. Also, if you see me, please do not comment on how big I am. I see myself every day, and I struggle to fit into my maternity clothes. I am well aware that I am enormous. I do not want to be reminded. If you slip up and say something like "holy cow you are so huge! How can such a little person become so monstrous??" I will probably say something equally rude, even if you are a stranger. Like to the lady in the grocery store, who was no light-weight herself.

On an unrelated note, Abby has been sleeping with no diaper on! She decided last week that she was ready to try, and she is doing great! She has accidents now and then, but is usually dry in the mornings! We are very proud of her! Now we just need to wait for her to decide to poop in the potty. She says that she will do it when she is five.

5 Year Plans

I come from a family of planners. Growing up, we had family planning every Sunday night at 7 PM to discuss our various schedules for the coming week. We all had calendars and pencils in hand, and while it may seem a little strange to an outsider, it worked out really well. And it molded me into a planner. I devised my life into segments of 5 year plans, set goals and found ways to meet them. Well, I have run out of 5 year plans. I have attained everything important that I set out to do before I was 30. (well, except for delivering this second baby, that is...) I even got a rock tumbler and am almost done processing my first set of polished rocks! (Not all plans and goals are earth shattering). I suppose when I was "young" I just did not think I would ever get as "old" as 30, and would not have to plan that far ahead. Well, here I am, not quite 30, but still in need of a new 5 year plan. Would it be lame to say that for then next 5 years I plan to enjoy the things in my life that I have worked for, like my family, my home and my job (and my rock tumbler)? I think for the next 5 years that is precisley what I am going to do. And I will make frivolous goals, such as making sure I get my hair cut 4 times a year, not just when my sisters are going to see me, do the renovations in our house to make it the way we want, and go on a few nice holidays. I just feel like such an underachiever when there are not signifigant items on my list. Perhaps I will make that a 3 year plan, and then revise as necessary, since I did finish this current 5 year plan a couple of years early.

Oh! I think I am having a contraction! Hopefully this one will lead somewhere...

Creativity

Well, pumpkin time is here. So we brought home a big ol pumpkin and set Abby to decorating it. I gave her some paint, expecting that she would paint the jack o lantern face, and then I would cut out the shapes. Well, she did her own thing and it is so cool! She covered the entire pumpkin with colourful paint, and then asked for glitter to sprinkle over it. It is so neat what kids will come up with when they are not jaded by what a halloween pumpkin is "supposed" to look like. I think most of us become adults and forget about real creativity. At least, I have...

I am going to try to post a few pictures here, hopefully it works. One is Abby with her pumpkin, and another showcases my enormous inflated size. Baby is still not here yet, and I am getting even bigger than I was with Abby - I did not make it this far along with her. So here it is, have a good laugh. I just might have to join my exercise fanatic sisters in their butter boycott after this is all said and done...

Cat Poo

One year ago, we moved into our little house, and since then, our cat (whose name is Fisch) has been pooing on the laundry room floor. Every day, without fail, sometimes even two times a day. It drives me crazy! I was soo mad at her, and started actually to hate and resent her. I was totally convinced that she was doing it just to piss me off. I stopped being nice to her, stopped petting her and letting her cuddle with me. I would leave the door open for an extra second hoping that she would escape and get lost. In fact, the only reason I did not let her get away is because Abby loves her so much. I was just so tired of cleaning up that poo all of the time! She was getting all mangy and pulling our all of her fur too. I would wake up and the (white) kitchen floor would be covered in tufts of cat hair, and Fisch would have yet another bald spot...

Well, I think I have solved the problem. I started buying a different food for her, because since I no longer work, I don't make it over to the place where I used to buy her food. And, since this new food, she has only pooed on the floor a couple of times! I think her food was making her sick, and that is why she became a mangy, fur pulling, floor pooping beast.

I feel terrible that I withdrew all of my cat motherly affection from her. I really had no clue that she might be sick, I just thought that she hated me. I am so glad that she is better! I am going to go and pet her. Poor Kitty.

Thankful

Thanksgiving was this last weekend, and even though I did not have any turkey dinner (I know! A travesty! I might make one soon...), I have many things to be thankful for. I have been feeling like my life is so happy right now, so many of the things are "just right".

I have an incredible husband who I adore, and adores me. Once I was driving to Slave Lake with a girl from high school who I had not spoken to for a long time, and she asked me what Keith is like. At first, it was hard to answer her question, but once I got started, there was just so much to say. I think I ended up talking about him for at least an hour! He is kind, thoughtful and makes me laugh. He is creative, and can fix nearly everything. I don't think I have enough blog space to sing all of his praises... There are so many great things about him, I am so happy to call him my husband and that I get to spend the rest of my life with him.

I get to be Abby's mummy! She is such a great little girl. I know you all have heard all of the corny things about being a parent and how it changes your life, and so on and so forth, but they are all true, and it is overwhelming. Every night when I am cuddling with her before bedtime, I just feel like I have won the lottery again. And I get to be someone else's mummy soon too! It just astounds me that I get to have so much happiness in my life.

Because of my being pregnant, my Crohn's is in remission, and that is wonderful. Even though I have all sorts of complaints about being 8 months along, it is WAY better than the way my body usually feels... I try to think about this at night when it is impossible to get a good nights sleep.

I am also thankful for my home. We were fortunate to be able to buy a house before the real estate market here expolded. It feels so good to have set a goal, and worked really hard to reach it, and be able to enjoy it.
........................

On a totally unrelated note, Abby has lost her childhood innocence. She had a balloon for about a week, and she loved it so much. Then she got the idea that she wanted to trace the letters on it with a sharp pencil. And of course, the balloon popped. It was the first time this has happened. Usually, she takes such good care of her balloons that they eventually deflate and shrink. Not so traumatic. Well, the look on her face was so heartbreaking, especially when I had to tell her, that no, Daddy cannot fix a popped balloon. It is such a harsh world.

apology

I know I have not blogged in a while. I am sorry, Betina and Eve (no one else reads this, I am sure.) It is just that right now, my life is overwhelmed with waiting. waiting. I am too pregnant to do anything fun, as I cannot walk 3 blocks without needing to stop and catch my breath. Seriously, I tried walking to the grocery store today with Abby. My maternity clothes are getting too small, and considering that there are only a few weeks left, I REFUSE to buy anything new. So I have to hike my pants up every few steps I take, and pull my shirts down to cover my belly. I am too tired to have any witty comments about everyday life with a husband and three year old, and I am not a world traveller with exotic locales to report about.

Also, my mother was here over night for 2 nights in a row. Since my only readers are my own siblings, that is probably explanation enough for me to stay in hiding for at least a month while I recover.

the down side

Okay, I am on my third week of stay at home mom-hood. I have a terrible confession to make. I am getting really bored. I am sure that fate if going to kick me in the butt for saying this (probably on or about November 7th), but it is true. I have finished some major household duties. Some things I want to do, I cannot because of my delicate state (delicate my left elbow!) and have to wait for my dear husband to help me with. My house is cleaner than it has been in ages, I make the beds every day, and plan and cook good healthy meals for supper. I have arranged weekly play dates with my neufie neighbor who has 2 kids close in age to Abby. I also have arranged to be at story time once a week at the library. I have caught up on all of my phone calls and paper work stuff. What do I do now????

Do I have to start canning vegetables?
Do I circle the best deals in flyers and spend all day doing grocery shopping at 17 different stores to get good deals and "save money"?
Do I pester everyone I know to buy Discovery Toys from me? (Actually I might just do that - the toys are really cool, and I love doing all of the paperwork involved in putting peoples orders together. Watch your mailbox for a catalogue coming soon!)

AHHHH! What do stay at home moms do all day long???

the down side

Okay, I am on my third week of stay at home mom-hood. I have a terrible confession to make. I am getting really bored. I am sure that fate if going to kick me in the butt for saying this (probably on or about November 7th), but it is true. I have finished some major household duties. Some things I want to do, I cannot because of my delicate state (delicate my left elbow!) and have to wait for my dear husband to help me with. My house is cleaner than it has been in ages, I make the beds every day, and plan and cook good healthy meals for supper. I have arranged weekly play dates with my neufie neighbor who has 2 kids close in age to Abby. I also have arranged to be at story time once a week at the library. I have caught up on all of my phone calls and paper work stuff. What do I do now????

Do I have to start canning vegetables?
Do I circle the best deals in flyers and spend all day doing grocery shopping at 17 different stores to get good deals and "save money"?
Do I pester everyone I know to buy Discovery Toys from me? (Actually I might just do that - the toys are really cool, and I love doing all of the paperwork involved in putting peoples orders together. Watch your mailbox for a catalogue coming soon!)

AHHHH! What do stay at home moms do all day long???

Stay at Home MOM!

I have been a stay at home mom for a whole week! I love it so much. I am a much better mother. I have more patience, I relate to Abby better, and my house is so much cleaner. Today I cleaned out the fridge, not just throwing away the rotten things as usual, but taking out the drawers and shelves and scrubbing. I also soaked the kitchen garbage with bleach. I have a daily and weekly lists, and everything is getting crossed off! I had abandoned the list making behaviour (which is genetically programmed in me), because it was too depressing not to have time to do the things on it. This week I painted the living room, and as soon as I find Keith's tape measure, I am going to hang the pictures that I enlarged and framed. These are all things that working full time moms do not get to do. Really. We have been living here for a year now, and do not have any framed photos on the walls. And my husband is a professional photographer!!! It was ridiculous and embarassing. Abby and I even made our beds today, which I have never in my life done. Also embarassing.

I do need to remember to schedule some me time though. Today at lunch, I cut the crusts off of my own sandwich. (Abby does not like the crust because she does not like the colour brown.)

My big news for the week is that I have enrolled in a program where I get to have this new baby in a hospital with a midwife!! I am so thankful that I got in, it was really last minute, but someone had cancelled about 10 minutes before I called. I am really looking forward to a natural birth experience, without drugs (as much as I like drugs), and fancy interventions that cause me more pain and suffering. I refuse to have another birth experience like last time! No, I am not turning into an "earth mother" type completley, we are not setting up a pool in the living room or anything like that, but I really am looking forward to a more normal and healthy experience. I am not nervous about it anymore. I am actually looking forward to it. I feel like I have won the lottery.

The Third Trimester

Well, I am now in the third trimester. I have only 2 days of work left, after which I get to be a pogie bum! Thank goodness I live in Alberta. We get 1 year of paid maternity/parental leave before getting my old job back, should I want it. I am going to try to get sick leave first though, so that I can be off for the next 10 weeks or so before mat leave starts...

So, about the third trimester. It is really the most horrid part of pregnancy. I just need to make one complaint about it, and then I promise I will shut up.

You know in SanFransisco when the sea lions are hoisting themselves up onto the dock? That is how I feel when I am getting into bed. Sometimes I make noises like them too.

That is all. You will see no more complaints from me about this miraculous event that I am experiencing. It will be all sweetness and light from here on.

Belly Pictures!

Alright, I am trying to upload a belly picture or two. I hope it works. I also hope that I am violating any blogspot rules by posting a bit of skin. So, enjoy, this belly is about 7 months along. It is still a managable size. In another week or so, it will not be so cute and perky. Soon, my belly button will be completly gone, and I will not be able to see my cute pedicure anymore.

Our First Camping Trip!

This weekend, we took Abby on her first camping trip! It was a great success, and we all had a good time. We went to Allan Beach, which is a 30 minute drive from home (close enough that we could have chickened out, if necessary). Mom, next summer we will go together, I think you will love it! They have a nice beach area and a lake that you can actually swim in, beautiful camping sites (although Keith missed was sad there were no pine trees, just leafy poplars), and the cleanest outhouses I have ever been in. They also had flush toilets and showers. Abby requested a row-boat ride: "please, it is my best dream to go in a row-boat, I never did before in my whole life!!!" So, we rented a creaky old row-boat, and Keith paddled us out to the middle of the lake. Another highlight was of course the marshmallow roasting, and eating yummy smores... One night Abby woke up around 2 AM, and I showed her the stars, and she declared that there were 45 of them. We had such a good time!

Today's funny: we are eating supper, and Abby is playing with her food. So, I be a good mother and tell her to stop, food is for eating not for playing, blah blah blah... Not 5 minutes later, I look over to Keith, who has constructed a rocket ship out of his corn cob and the corn pokers, and is pretending to "blast off" over the table. I am out numbered. But happy that I have such a creative and free thinking family. And I must admit that the watermelon rind centipede was a kind of cute.

Coming soon: Pictures of my belly - as soon as I figure out how to add a picture to the blog.

medicentres

My dad is a medical doctor. This is a wonderful thing. It means that if I run out of a prescription, I can just call him up, anytime, and get one. I can find out answers to strange medical queeries, get stitches at the kitchen table if needed and that sort of thing. Most of all, it means that in my daughter's entire 3 years, we have not known the horror of medicentres. Until today. I have always heard such awful stories about them. Waiting for hours among people who are drunk, dirty, or highly infectious and spurting blood everywhere, seeing doctors who do not speak english, or are grumpy because they have to work there. Well, I was pleasantly surprised today! Abby has an eye infection, so my sister Nawana called my up at work, (because there was a lot of gross pus and swelling. Yuck), and I came home to take her to the medicentre. (Our regular office had no openings today, and I needed someone to actually look in Abby's eye, so a phone consultation with my dad would not have worked.) Well. The place was clean, and while many of the patients in the waiting room were obviously there because they had survived yet another beating, (very sad), it was fine. There was no moaning and groaning, we were taken in after maybe half an hour of waiting, and they had good magazines! The doctor spoke english as a first language, he was nice to us, and Abby was not afraid of him. I must say that I am quite impressed, and just had to share. Emergency medical clinics are not as bad as you might think!

Still a Quitter

I used to smoke. I smoked for almost 10 glorious years. I really liked smoking. I liked the buzz it gave me, how it gave me something to do with my hands (now I just pick at my cuticles, yuck) and how it gave me a way to fit in with new people when in an uncomfortable social situation. I liked having a cigarette when I had finished something, or was making a plan to do something. I liked the escape it gave me when I just did not want to be somewhere anymore, I could "go for a smoke". I liked lighters, in the many beautiful colours, and I liked the size of the package and how it fit in my purse just right beside my wallet. I especially liked sitting outside on a hot summer day, and having a cold drink and a cigarette.

I quit smoking over 2 years ago. I quit mostly because I was pretty sick with my Crohn's disease, and wanted to get better. I figured that filling my lungs with toxins was a pretty stupid thing to do if I expected my body to heal. There were other reasons, the usual stuff, like setting a good example for my daughter, saving money, and so on, but the Crohn's was the main one. I am glad that I quit, it was very hard to do, and I am proud that I have not had a smoke in over 2 years.

However. I really want to still be a smoker. I have these dreams where I am having a cigarette. I wake up, and I am so happy, I want to jump out of bed and have another. But then I realize that it was just a wonderful dream, and really, I should not go and sneak a cigarette from my husbands pack.

The thing is, my Crohn's never did get better, smoking or not. It was really a let down. The only upside to it all is that my Doctor gave me steroids which are really great drugs. I must say that I quite liked them, and after my prescribed doseage was over (a sad sad day) I was in serious danger of hanging outside of gyms to shake down the bodybuilders and steal their stashes.

Why, oh why do I enjoy chemical stimulants so much??? It is not fair. I am looking forward to delivering this child and maybe trying out some morphine. Just a bit. To take the edge off, you know.

Still, I am a quitter. And even though I do not like it, I am proud of myself.

I am a Genius

I had an incredibly great idea today. To make Smores with NUTELLA!!! mmm that would be so good. I am going to reserve our camping spot right now... In fact, I may even try making them on the BBQ because they sound so yummy, and I am very food-suggestible these days, ( I am 22 weeks pregnant.) You could even put a layer of bananas on them. Just think. Graham cracker, nutella, banana, marshmallow, nutella and another graham cracker. Pure heaven. I really am a genius.

A World Full of 3 Year Olds

I was watching Abby the other day, and started to think about what it would be like if we were all 3 years old. We had finished dinner, and she decided to spin around in circles, and then lay down under the table when she got dizzy. She breaks out into song whenever she feels like it, no matter where we are, or who is around. She makes up her own songs about everyday things and it is really sweet. She just had her birthday party, and when we were decorating her cake, she was very adamant that she wanted a nine on it, instead of a three. (I put a three on it anyway. Did I stifle her creativity? Hopefully I did not damage her for life...) She also wants to go and live on top of a fluffy cloud with mummy, daddy, our cat, and papa.

If I could live that way, not concerned about what other people thought, I would be naked a lot more often. Especially in the summer. I would eat more chocolate, and would eat desert first. I would also sleep more, whenever I felt like it. I would also have a lot of umbrellas, and a very big rock collection that took up a lot of space.

first try

Well, I have to join the blogging club to be like my sisters. I titled it "meagre offerings" because my life is pretty normal, and nothing much out of the ordinary happens. Except for yesterday. I told my meddlesome and hateful Grandmother off! I am still a bit shocked that I did it, afterall, she is an old lady, but man, it was a long time coming. Am I a bad person? I really was quite mean. But on the other hand, she said something really awful that hurt my feelings, and I just cannot listen to her saying bad things about people who I love. She does it all the time and thinks that she can get away with it because she is old, and the family matriarch. I have not spoken to her since, and part of me is feeling really guilty. But another part of me is sticking my tongue out at her and saying "ha!" Take that you meanie!!