the tile is taking on a crazy kind of shine

Have you ever heard of anyone having a nervous breakdown in their sleep or may I be the first to claim that honour? People, I’m telling you, I woke up on the wrong side of crazy this morning. My brain, it don’t work no more.

I’m not sure if it was 160something nights in a row of awake-asleep-awake-asleep-awake-asleep-awake-asleep-awake-asleep-awake-asleep or the 2am I bumped my finger this afternoon and now it needs a kissy cry or the hideous, hideous smells wafting from the other side of the bed an unidentified source that did me in. All I know is that I feel off balance today. Quite fragile. Teary. And rather skoots, if you will (and I think you will or I will weep at you). Pretty much, I can’t deal anymore. I’z done right in.

When I put the baby down for a nap, I did the only that seemed reasonable to me at the time. I emptied everything out of the back hallway that leads to the garage, laundry room et al and scrubbed it until it shone. Nothing makes a crazy person feel a whole lot more balanced than grout you can feed your kids a snack on. Now when I have 32 loads of laundry lined up in the hallway, I can rest in the knowledge that it is sitting on very sparkly tiles.

999

Quick! Someone dial 999. My husband, he’s got a man cold…

(FYI, he’s not getting a bell.)

karma

Today I’m super glad that I don’t believe in karma as a major part of my religious beliefs because instead of sitting here drinking tea and absentmindedly watching Elmo count spots on a cheetah, I’d be desperately searching my past to see what horrible act I committed that brought about today’s tidings. Every single one of us woke up sick this morning (although T and I didn’t so much wake up. Since we were both up all night- he worked until 5:30am and I rocked the little one- it was more of a realization that another day was about to begin and we both felt like crap). Yup, all of us, even the baby. Drippy noses, runny eyes, achy and grumpy all around! As it turns out, a baby who doesn’t really sleep at the best of times sleeps even less when he has a cold. I’m going with the load up on vitamins and laugh about it cure for this one! My son thinks that popcorn and tv will help so we’re giving that a whirl as well. I’ll let you know if it helps.

I’d call my Mom to come over and watch the kids for a bit so I could sleep but my parents are going to Florida tomorrow and we’re looking after their dog (the one we gave to them because we couldn’t handle having a dog and three kids). Hahahahahaha!

don’t ask!

When people ask me if my son is a good baby, I have a hard time responding. Most people are actually asking if he sleeps though the night and is generally easy. The answer to that is a resounding, “NO”. The problem I have is that if he isn’t a “good” baby by the sleeping/easy-o-meter, what does that make him? I guess my struggle to respond is more that I’m not comfortable with the opposite of “good”. My boy is a lot of things but he’s certainly not “bad”. He isn’t easy and doesn’t like to sleep much but he is squishy and lovable and has the best laugh ever. So if you see me in the grocery store don’t ask me if my munchkin is good, OK because that is just an awkward question that leaves me feeling weird.

I’m also starting to kind of hate it when, all be it, well intentioned people call me on a daily basis to see if he slept the night before. Except for a small handful of nights, he hasn’t slept more than 4 hours in a row since the end of September. Trust me, if he slept though the entire night you would know. There would be a major shift in the universe and you would feel it in your bones. We’ve done everything we know to do and he still doesn’t sleep. I’ve gotten our other two kids to sleep well and have had great success getting several so called terrible sleepers to have 3 hour naps on a daily basis in my day home but can not get my little linebacker to sleep. The fact is that he is hungry every 3 hours and nothing seems to change that. I’m not prepared to let my beloved little baby cry alone in his crib for an hour or more every time he wakes up just because someone else had success letting their kids cry it out. Not on my watch! So we will continue to hope that he’ll start to sleep better (hope as in the way we hope for debt relief for Africa, a solution to global warming…). I will also try to remember that the days fly by and before I know it he will be a wiggly 2 year old I’m trying to chase down for a hug (never mind a too busy to stop for a second almost 6 year old). Then I will be longing for the days that he loved to lay in my arms and nestle his face into my neck. I have years and years and years to sleep but only so many precious days to hold him in my arms.

Tiny pushes

I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. ~Helen Keller~

and now for a recipe

Much less cranky post ahead!

Since I’ve been off dairy and eggs, I’ve had to get a little more creative about some of our meals. I didn’t realize how often we ate dairy until I couldn’t. Breakfast was particularly hard for me. Lately, I’ve been rotating between rice pudding and fruit or cream of wheat with dried fruit for breakfast. I just replace the cow’s milk with rice milk (and make sure not to add any additional sugar since it’s pretty sweet) or almond milk. Pretty tasty, really. Why I hated cream of wheat as a kid is beyond me. I love the stuff now!

Removing yogurt (eaten right out of the container because I’m lazy and my kids don’t like my favourite kind), cheese and crackers or pasta with egg and parmasean from my standards has meant that I’ve been reaching for fruits and veggies as snacks more frequently. I’ve also been eating more whole grains since I’ve been thinking more carefully about what I put in my mouth. I feel a lot better. I’ve finally starting to loose weight again. Hurray!

The other night my darling husband made supper. His stir fry’s are hands down WAAAAAY better than mine any day. Even our “culinarily challenged” daughter loved it!

T’s FAMOUS stir-fry*

1/2 large onion cut into strips
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1-2 TBSP fresh ginger, minced (or used 2-3 of those frozen cubes)
Various veggies (broccoli, carrot ribbons-cut them with a potato peeler, snow peas, bean sprouts, mixed peppers- thinly sliced, baby bok choy etc)
A protein such as chicken, beef or tofu- cut into thin strips (marinade with a few TBSP’s each of soy sauce and oyster sauce, a tsp each of fish sauce and 5-spice and a bit of demerara sugar to balance)
1/2 package thick rice noodles- cooked to package directions
1 TBSP oil

SAUCE

4 TBSP soy sauce
4 TBSP oyster sauce
2 tsp fish sauce
1/4 tsp cayenne (or to taste)

To start, marinade your meat for an hour (if you have time) in a zip lock bag. Next, mix the sauce ingredients. Taste, adjust and set aside (you might need to double the sauce depending on how much stir fry you are making). Now you are ready to cook! Heat the oil in a wok. Add half of the garlic and stir fry briefly. Add your marinated protein and stir fry until just cooked. Place in a dish and keep warm. Next add the rest of the garlic, onion and ginger to your wok. Stir fry for a couple of minutes being careful not to burn. Add your veggies, starting with the densest ones first. Once your veggies are almost cooked, add the protein back into the stir fry and combine. Move the stir fry to the sides of the wok to create a centre hole. Add about one cup of water (depending on the amount of veggies etc. you have) and then your pre-mixed sauce. Let it come to a boil and then add 1 TBSP cornstarch that has been dissolved in a bit of cold water (you might need a bit more, depending on how much water you added). Once the sauce is thick and bubbling add your cooked rice noodles right in the middle of it and then mix everything really well.

This was so good we all went back for seconds and then I ate lunch early the next day so I could eat the leftovers!

*The title is for my MIL

verbal diarrhea

I’d like to post more. Really, I would. The thing is, I don’t have time. I’m hard pressed to go pee without someone screaming at the door so you can imagine how difficult it is to get through an entire post. Nearly impossible. I also don’t have a lot that is really worth sharing right now. My kids do say all kinds of funny things that I wish I recorded more (like the fact that G offered baby J her bedroom and said that she would “sleep in Daddy’s office or somewhere really” when she heard that he needed his own room but we didn’t know what we were going to do or N’s insistence on calling those handy little directions or how to’s, if you will, that come with games and DIY things “in-constructions”). Otherwise, I’m feeling rather negative and surly and really, who wants to read that crap?

The truth is that I’m tired and worn out. Big surprise. I have a baby that generally doesn’t sleep more than 3 hours at a time. 2 other kids that get me running around like one of my sister’s crisis patients and a husband who is over tired and retreating to his man cave (I loath the man cave). I know that it’s a time of life thing but it’s sucking right now to the point that I want to smack myself for ever even thinking of having four kids (really, WHAT. WAS. I. THINKING?). All I want is to go to bed when I am ready to and be able to sleep until a reasonable hour (not for an hour. UNTIL a reasonable hour). I need some sleep and I’m getting kind of pissed off about it. My get up and go is gone. To be honest, I’m even starting to feel mad at God and found myself giving him a rather cranky speech last night (I know, I know. Model Christian. Excellent demonstration of faith). Basic eating has even become a challenge with not being able to eat any dairy or eggs. I’d just like to pour myself a bowl of cereal or have a little yogurt when I drag my sorry self out of bed in the morning but I can’t do that anymore. And then I feel a bit resentful that I’ve had to totally change my eating for my baby and he doesn’t even have the decency to sleep! Truth be told, I’d eat nothing but boiled seaweed if it would help him but I’m just feeling sorry for myself and acting like a grumpy old sow.

While I’m allowing myself a rant, I would like to say that I am sick of having to deprogram my kids for a month after Christmas. They are acting entitled and rather ungrateful. I’m done with that. So very done with it. I’m not sure exactly what we are going to do about it but I swear that this was the last Christmas we allow our children to be totally sold out to the commercial side of Christmas. I doubt they even registered that we were meant to be celebrating the birth of our Saviour. That precious little baby changed the world and do you know what we did about it this year? Not much. I am ashamed by that. I am embarrassed by the attitudes we have allowed to foster in our children and the sea of excess they live with (though good intentions but none the less…). We have a serious problem here in North America with coveting and hoarding and excess and I don’t want that for my kids. Our goals for this year are simplicity and joy. That’s what I want to give my kids because they can carry that into their future’s much longer than the plastic toy of the moment on their lists.

I warned you that I’m cranky! At least I was honest. Now what was that I said about joy…?

farewell hello

Goodbye, 2007! What a year you were. By far the craziest in the history of this family. You threw a lot at us but we survived it all. More than just survived, actually. There were some tears and a few fights but given all the huge changes you brought, I feel proud of how we walked through it. I’m proud of my husband and the incredible man that he is, of our resilient, smart, beautiful children and of myself for not losing my sense of humour (most of the time anyway) while I orchestrated a lot of it.

2007 you started us off with a big surprise… another baby on the way! From there we decided to move across the country just to keep it all interesting. I spent about 12 weeks reeling like a drunken sailor from my horrible nausea and then we moved swiftly into T’s job transition (thank you Jesus for providing such an amazing job. It’s truly a blessing). A week after he started his new job we put our house on the market to sell privately cause we had never done that before and it seemed like a great idea (for the record, it was a good idea since we saved about a kerjillion dollars in real estate fees). Another week later I flew out east to purchase our new home. 4 days, hundreds of digital pictures, $100 in extra cell phone charges and 4 times back and forth with an offer to purchase, we were the proud owners of our new home (I’m still sorry that I missed your birthday, little man). In the mean time, T held the open house that eventually led to the sale of our western home.

We took April off to get our wits about us and spend some time with our children. In May we took the trip to Vancouver that we had been meaning to do for 5 or so years and had the best time with our friends out there. When we got home, I finished with my dayhome and then started packing. What a bloody lot of work that was even with the 5 full van loads of stuff we donated and random items that I forced or friends to take when they left our home! As we neared the end of packing, we began to get rid of stuff based on it’s weight or size rather than it’s actual value. Funny enough, I don’t miss a thing.

On June 12 the moving van came and took all of our belongings. What an unexpectedly hard day that was. I cried as we walked the house room by room remembering the days and nights we had spent in them. The children cried as they said goodbye to their friends. That night my Dad flew in and he and T left a few hours later to make the long drive to our new home. The kids and I stayed with friends and then flew out the next morning. OUr flight was really, really hard. N sobbed and waved goodbye to our city and our home. It was rather heart wrenching. Once the kids and I arrived, we stayed with my parents until our house was ready. Daddy and Poppa arrived on the 14th after 37 straight hours of driving. We took possession of our house the 15th. I was rather nervous to show it to T for the first time. What if he didn’t like it? Fortunately he did! That weekend we painted most of the house with the help of friends and family. Our furniture arrived the 19th and then we spent our first night in the house the next night. It was good to have a place to call home again.

We spent the next several weeks unpacking, getting settled and exploring our new city. I was a little frantic to get things ready before our little baby came to stay. In August we geared up for a visit from Grandma and Grandpa. As they were in the air flying east towards us, I went into labour two weeks early. On August 9th we welcomed a 7 pound 6 ounce perfect little baby boy into our lives. Our family all got to see him within hours of his birth. It was especially meaningful to introduce Grandpa to the little boy we named after him in person and watch his reaction. That was an unexpected delight!

Since August our lives have been a blinding whirlwind. I can’t really say what we have done but I know we were busy. N started kindergarten in September and is loving it. It is wonderful to watch him excel at school. We love our new role as proud parents taking way too many photos of the first day of school, the first assembly etc. G and I have been enjoying having some more time together when N is at school and baby is sleeping (hahaha!). We do a lot of baking and cooking together. I’m so proud of the incredible helper that she has become.

It has been both a joy and challenge having a baby in the house again. Baby J is chubby and delightful. He has the most infectious giggle and easily wins anyone’s affection with his animated conversations of coos and babbles. The hardest part has been his on-going struggle with gas, cramping and sleepless nights. We have been up every 2 hours at night since Thanksgiving and are beyond worn out. Exhaustion has become a way of life. Last week J’s tummy pain and constant waking reached a grand crescendo. We weren’t really getting anywhere with the doctor so we took matters into our own hands (which we would/should have done ages ago but we weren’t thinking clearly). After doing some reading, I have gone off all dairy, eggs, peanuts, shellfish and a few other things. We have seen a marked improvement in little J in only a few days. The rash on his face that we attributed to drool from teething has cleared up. His tummy pain has really reduced and last night he slept for FIVE AND A HALF HOURS STRAIGHT!!!! That’s what I’m talking about! We’ll see how the next week goes before we make any final conclusions but we are strongly leaning towards believing that he is allergic/sensitive to dairy. I’m feeling really relieved that something seems to be helping but also very foolish. Actually kind of guilty. Normally, allergies/food sensitivities is one of the first things that I think of but I was just functioning (if you can call it that) in survival mode. We are also going to take baby J for some chiropractic treatments this week to see if that will also help.

Along with dealing with all of our kid stuff, we’ve been really busy with lots of other things too. We continue to make changes around the house and try to unpack the last of the large stack of boxes left in the basement. We’ve had 2 more visits from Grandma and Grandpa over Thanksgiving and Christmas. We also had a visit from Uncle C this Christmas. T, J and I spent a week out west at the end of November. It was so great to visit our friends and introduce our little man to everyone. While we were gone, N and G spent a few days with Oma and Poppa and then a few with Uncle M and Auntie Le. They had a blast but we were all really glad to see each other again. 3 days after we got home, we had a big surprise party at our house for my Mom’s 60th followed by a family supper the next night. 2 days later N had his tonsils removed and was off school for a week. Once he recovered we were full swing in Christmas season. This year we had our German Christmas Eve at my parents house and Christmas Day at our place. It was busy, full and a bit overwhelming but really special at the same time. The best part was having so many members of both of our families together. T’s parents went home on the 30th and his brother on the 31st. We dropped N and G off at my parents place for a sleep over and then ended the year rocking out to Rock Band at my brother place. It was a total blast and a great way to end a crazy, crazy year.

On New Years Day, T and I chatted about our plans for the year. We are planning on spending this year getting grounded. We want to meet more people in our community. Explore the area. Go to the local markets and antique shows. Do some biking on the trails near our house. We are hoping for a much slower pace and way less change. We want to spend more time at home focusing on our family. We are going to make saving for our future and our kids education a new level of priority. All in all, we are hoping for a more simple, steady pace of life. We’ll see what 2008 brings. Hopefully there is a full nights sleep somewhere in the plans!