still sick

He suprised me - 10 days of cipro HC. Better work.

days full of doctors

I'm sick. I don't get sick real often, and usually I try to ignore it until it goes away but there's no ignoring the hot poker jabbing in my ear with each beat of my heart, or the fever that's leaving me spacey and even less articulate than usual. Doctor's appointment tomorrow at 3, I'm predicting a 10 day course of amoxil.

Sadly I'm sure it's stress that's left me vulnerable to whatever bug has set up shop in my ear. It sucks how a bad spot affects every nook and cranny of your life.

On the positive, Katie had her annual check up this morning (my paediatrician does well baby visits at 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, and 18 months, then annually after that so her check ups are always on the half-year), she's as healthy and perfect as possible. 39 inches tall (50th percentile) and 34 pounds (50th percentile). She was almost nice to the doctor once he convinced her that she wasn't getting a needle.

Jonah's first appointment with our eye doctor was last week and he told us that he doesn't think Jonah will have the same issue as Katie (strabismus). I left his office thinking that I was just paranoid and that Jonah was just fine. Then I took this picture over the weekend.

See how one eye has red eye and the other doesn't? It's one of the first ways we knew that Katie's eyes weren't both looking at the same thing. *sigh* I think I'll bring him along to Katie's follow up with the specialist. I just feel deep down that I know him better than the eye doctor, and he did miss Katie's problem the first time, only sending her to a specialist when I pressed.

So - am I paranoid or does it look like his eyes aren't *quite* aligned?

an Olympic rant

Are you watching the Olympics? I admit I'm a sports geek but especially the games of the Olympiad. That being said as a former gymnast I am so saddened by the controversy surrounding the judging at the games this year. Gymnastics judging (unlike figure skating) had, until now, been above reproach. Now we've been dirtied and sullied, and for what? So that a couple of countries can 'buy' a couple of extra medals? That is simply not the point when it comes to gymnastics. Gymnastics has always been about personal bests, about rising to the occasion, about trying (and perfecting) new moves. There is seldom a gold medal favourite in gymnasts because it is such a rapidly evolving sport. The gymnasts themselves are usually learning and practicing new moves during the lead up to major competitions, and often they decide as they approach the mat whether to incorporate the new moves (and risk devastation for a chance at increased glory) or play it safe one more routine.

I hate that greed - the greed of the various Olympic committees and federations who continue to exert undue influence on the judges - has tarnished my sport. The athletes deserve so much better. They deserve a clean, unbiased judging panel so that their awe inspiring athleticism can shine.

End of vacation

Quiet weekend with the two littlest ones. C went to the cottage for some quiet study time (he has an exam to write) and James is spending the last two weeks of summer with his aunt. Spent some time at the SILs cottage (and some time with baby Ethan) and a nice dinner tonight with the other SIL. So ends my vacation, tomorrow bright and early I'm back at work :(


Cute cousins

weaned?

It's been 3 days since Jonah last nursed. I'm guessing he is weaned. I'd been trying Kelly Mom's "Don't offer, don't refuse" method for about a month now and he was down to generally once a day (and usually once overnight as well) but 3 days ago I decided I couldn't handle the night session any longer (he was comfort nursing, and doing so for 45 - 90 minutes! I was sore and miserable) so DH took over the nighttime comforting. Once he did that Jonah spontaneously gave up the day time feeding.

I'm sad, which I expected, he is after all my very last baby and now closer than ever to not being a baby at all. What I didn't expect was mixed in with the sadness and longing a selfish tinge of relief. Somewhere in the back of my mind I'm thinking that for the first time in more than 4 years I'm going to have my body back all to myself.

So I'm sad. And relieved. And proud that I gave Jonah 14.5 months of the best stuff and that he made the decision to move on mostly by himself. My baby is growing up.

Pretty princess four-eyes

We picked up Katie's glasses!



Doesn't she look absolutely adorable? And so so grown up! She picked them out herself, they're Barbie but they're fairly conservative and elegant. As a bonus she's so far excited to wear them and hasn't fussed about keeping them on.

I hate cars

I hate cars. I hate the endless stream of money required to keep them running, I hate our absolute dependance on these lumps of steel and rubber and I hate like hell the auto mechanics we have to grovel before when something goes wrong.

I'm having car trouble - can you tell? Of course it couldn't be the cheap "you just need a small adjustment" type of trouble, no it's the forget about eating for the next month type. $1027 that we absolutely cannot afford. Yet what can we do? We've pinned our hopes on being able to get a decent sum for this stupid car if we can ever find a buyer for it, and there's no way anyone will buy it if it doesn't drive! "Why yes, it's a fabulous car, very reliable except that you can't shift gears".

Financially it feels like every time we manage to get our heads just a little out of the water something pushes us back down again. I'm sick of drowning... and I'm sick of cars.

patience

I made milkshakes for the kids after dinner tonight and Katie spilled hers. Before I could stop myself I scolded her (I'd already mopped the diningroom twice today), and she burst into tears. In a flash I was transported back to all of those times in my own childhood where an adult sucked all of the pleasure out of something eagerly anticipated, that horrible hollow feeling flooded back. I apologized and told her I love her (and I made her more milkshake) but the damage is done. Why am I so damned impatient? She's only 3, she's supposed to spill. It's the reason we put wood down in the diningroom. And just Thursday I had a medical specialist tell me her depth perception is impaired, yet I snap at something as stupid, literally, as spilled milk. I could chalk it up to my lack of sleep but that would be a cop out. I pledged to myself that I would work on my patience this year but it's mid-August and I don't feel like I've made any real improvements. My family deserves better than this. What do I do?

Life's a Beach

Took the kids to M.ooney's Bay today (nice-ish beach, beautiful park, fabulous playground, TONS and TONS of room to move and run), it was a gorgeous mostly sunny 24C, warm enough to frolic in the water but not hot and low humidity. My idea of perfect summer weather. James was only interested in sitting on the beach, Jonah enjoyed throwing muck and eating sand, Katie kept pushing the envelope for how far she could sneak away (and how deep) before I'd haul her back in. The beach was fairly empty, less than a hundred people and half of those down the other end playing volleyball. Because there's a Parks Canada strike keeping the locks closed the only boat traffic we saw was rowers from the rowing club nearby. It lead to an amazing calm, the water was nearly still, you could hear the birds. Remarkable.

An older man with a tan that would put George Hamilton to shame was watching Jonah frolic, he asked me if Jonah was wearing sunscreen (duh!) and then said if I needed more he had a bottle in his bag. Uh, if you have a bottle of sunscreen buddy why the hell aren't you lubing up the leather you call skin yourself? Too weird.

After our swim we had a picnic lunch on the grassy part of the part right beside the playground, I've never seen the babes devour sandwiches with such gusto before! Something about eating real food in the great outdoors (as opposed to the rancid fried stuff and junk they sell at the snackbar)? An hour at the playground followed by some time spent chasing the shithawks et voila: 3 exhausted kids ready to go home and have a nap. Or at least that was my thought but apparently only the 13 year old agreed (he flaked out ont he couch almost right away). Jonah was overtired enough to be a bear and it took an HOUR to settle him down. *sigh* It's never going to be easy with that one.

C has the decent digital camera with him in NB but I took the old shitburger camera, if anything decent comes off it I'll post.

maternal guilt

Had an awful night with Jonah. Half of it is my own damned fault, two friends came by to play cards and keep me company while C is away and they didn't leave 'til nearly two, so of course it was 2:30-ish before I fell asleep. Jonah woke up at 4:30 and was inconsolable. I nursed him, rocked him, walked him, cuddled with him, turned my back to him, shushed him, sang to him, rubbed his little head, nothing worked. I got more and more and more frustrated, more short tempered, more cold, less cuddly. When he finally nursed down at 6:15 he looked to tiny and sweet curled up in my big bed that I was flooded with guilt for being so impatient with him. He's still just a baby.

Muppet alter-ego

You are Statler or Waldorf.
You have a high opinion of yourself, as do others. But only because you are in the balcony seats.

ALSO KNOWN AS:
Those two old guys in the box.
SPECIAL TALENTS:
Heckling, complaining, being cantankerous
QUOTE:
"Get off the stage, you bum!"
LAST BOOKS READ:
"The Art of Insult" and "How To Insult Art"
NEVER LEAVE HOME WITHOUT:
Their pacemakers.


What Muppet are you?
brought to you by Quizilla


Really, I'm sure this has nothing to do with my perpetual snarky mood of late...

Katie's eyes - an update

Katie had her appointment with the paediatric ophthalmologist today (and wow was he efficient, you can tell he does nothing but tend to children, he had it down to a fast and thorough science - but I digress). He confirmed what we already knew and showed us that it was worse than we'd believed. We were under the impression that only her right eye was turning when in fact both are. He called it a moderate esotropic strabismus. Thankfully it has not yet resulted in a loss of vision so she won't need patching. He has prescribed glasses, which we'll initially try for 6 weeks then see how much (if any) of a correction they've made. At that time he should know whether she needs to continue wearing those glasses, needs new glasses with a stronger prism, or needs surgery. He didn't want to talk about surgery at all until we've tried the glasses.

He also has an optician's office on site so I took Katie over to look at frames, she seemed pretty interested in having special glasses all for herself. She picked out a lavendar pair of frames (branded "Barbie" despite having absolutely nothing Barbie-like anywhere on them) which were $80. And frankly that's a hell of a lot for frames for a 3 year old but I figured hell, glasses are a traumatic enough experience, get her what she wants. Besides, all of the other frames they carried were upwards of $60 too. So the measured and tinkered, then told me the glasses will be ready mid next week. Then they gave me the invoice - $224.00!!!!! Almost two hundred and thirty bucks for a pair of glasses for a toddler! I nearly fainted. Eighty bucks for the frames, $54 for the lenses and NINETY dollars for the dispensing fee! Holy shit! Thankfully I have a healthcare plan through work which should pay for $160 of that (I say should because the damned plan always finds ways to pay far less than they say they will - I submitted $225 for Jonah's circumcision and they sent me a cheque for $24).

Sadly I had my camera in my purse during the entire frame-choosing experience and didn't have enough free brain cells to remember to take it out. Oh well, you can be sure there'll be pictures when we finally pick them up.

Geez, I wonder what it'll cost me if she needs a stronger pair in 6 weeks time. *shudder*

Otherwise our first two days of vacation have been quiet, we're all feeling a little under the weather. Jonah is constipated and hasn't had a dump since Saturday, I'm eating gravol like it's going out of style and Katie has been throwing huge tantrums so intense that C wondered if she could be having a form of seizure (I don't think so but they're quite frightening). Nothing like vacation to f$%k up everyone's routines. C leaves tomorrow for an 11+ hour drive to New Brunswick and I plan on making tuna melts for dinner (he hates them but he won't be here to suffer) and then hunkering down to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics on TV (yes, I generally hate TV but I'm a serious Olympics fan).

I can hear Jonah tossing and turning through the monitor, I just know it's going to be another long, sleepless night. Guess I should turn in.

Holiday!

I'm finally on vacation. I have very little planned for my time off but just being away from work for a few days is almost as good as a Hawaiian trip. It's amazing how the closer to your vacation time you get the more annoyed with every stupid little thing that happens in the office you get. Finally, finally the time has come to recharge...

What type of villian are you?

What Type of Villain are You?

mutedfaith.com.



Eyeh, sure that has nothing to do with my shitty day at work....

The orangeguru is back!

One of my favourite blogs is back after a long hiatus - orangeguru's wild visual blogging. He's not for everybody (and definately not for kidlets or people easily offended by sleaze) but he features interesting and provocative images as well as sharp, witty and often acerbic commentary. Welcome back, you were missed.

Baby belly blues

Poor little wookie has tummy troubles. He's been miserable since Saturday and while we've been pushing water and prune juice it's not working. Tonight we tried a glycerine suppository and he fought it so hard! After all of the screaming, all of the tears it only produced a very small (and hard) result. Sigh. Another long night ahead of us I'm sure.

One other drawback to his tummy pain is that he wants to nurse a lot for comfort and man has it screwed up my supply. My body isn't used to demand feeding every 2 hours any more so I'm sore and exhausted, and when I went to work today I thought I might burst. Ugh, I thought these issues were behind me.

I haven't been online much lately, work has been extremely hectic and the babe hasn't been sleeping well, both of which combine to make me a very uninteresting zombie. I start a week and a half holiday Wednesday, I hope to catch up on some sleeping (and some blog reading) during that time. It just can't come soon enough.

New choppers

Finally those top two blasted molars have poked through! Maybe now Jonah will go back to sleeping well? Hey, a girl can dream right?

questions...

Those who are married: Did you have your wedding videotaped? And if you did, do you ever watch the video?

We watched our wedding video again on the weekend, I think we've watched all or part of it 2 dozen times at least. Still slightly cringe-inducing but incredibly sweet.