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!

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