Reflections on the Year

I realized that a lot of my posts are about frustrating times with the boys, and that's not quite accurate. Those are often the funniest stories to tell, and the ones that a lot of other people can relate to (or say Thank God that happened to her, not me!) so they're the blog-worthy stories. However, there are also so many great days with Ethan and Jack, and they're really very good kids, so I need to be fair and share my favourite reflections of 2007.

Ethan:
1. Jumping in the air and yelling "YESSSSS" when the Canucks score, then turning to Mike and saying "Did you see? He SMOKED that one, Daddy!"

2. He's never shy about telling me he loves me, and he has never shied away from a kiss or a hug, even in public. Yet.

3. His teacher loves him, and he loves her. He tries SO hard to please her, that even if he's practicing printing at home, he wonders aloud if Madame would think that was his BEST work. If he thinks not, he erases it and starts over.

4. He is the nicest boy to other kids, and he seems to sense when other kids are special needs. He then instinctively makes an extra effort to put those kids at ease. I've watched this happen in his classroom, and I've had two separate teachers at his school this week comment to me on his compassion and maturity.

5. His big blue eyes never fail to melt my heart.

Jack:
1. Potty trained. Even at night. Need I say more?

2. When he's sleeping, he is the most angelic child you have ever seen. The mischief is relaxed off his face, and he's left looking so adorable you could just eat him up.

3. He still smells baby sweet even though my "baby" will be 4 in just a few short months.

4. When I had broken down crying after trying to give Ethan his medicine, Jack brought me a tissue and gave me a huge hug, saying "Don't cwy Mummy, I wuv you."

5. Whenever he feels the urge to "swear" he runs to the bathroom and yells "pee poo fart", because we've told him those words are bathroom talk or potty talk.

They're adorable and I love them dearly. I am so excited to see how they will react to Christmas this year, and I wish you all the very best at this special time of year. Have a wonderful holiday!

Recovery and Going Crazy

I have just poured myself another Bailey’s on ice. One of my sons just fire-hosed the other. I heard a suspicious noise at 9 pm, long after their bedtime, and I went up to investigate. The door to Ethan’s room was closed – uh oh. I opened the door to complete chaos. They had pulled out the trundle bed so E’s room was basically all bed, and the room was soaked. I saw the spray in an arc from one end of the trundle to the other, up onto the bedside table, and across E’s bed and on his pyjama legs. I didn’t even know where to begin, looking at those guilt-ridden faces, but the lies started pouring forth from their lips. Jack’s story was that he TRIED to get to the bathroom but he just couldn’t make it. This story was extremely unlikely – I have watched too many CSI shows and the pattern of the splatter did not indicate movement towards the door in the slightest. Ethan was trying to talk over Jack and eventually I understood that Jack, when he realized he had to go, pulled his you-know out of his pants and chased Ethan with it, trying to GET him with PEE. Jack got exiled to the bathroom onto the cold tile floor while I stripped the beds and disinfected the room. Two books got tossed and one toy and the water cup got chucked into the dishwasher. Two sets of sheets, one pillow and one comforter and two pairs of pyjamas went into the wash. Lectured one boy for being up in the first place and not opening the door and yelling for me, and lectured the other for quite some time about the proper places to pee (i.e. NOT on your brother). While I was lecturing Jack, we heard Mike in the bathroom so I said “See? Where do you think Daddy is peeing right now?” Jack says, “I don’t know, on Ethan maybe?” with the biggest grin this side of the candy counter. I don’t know if you all remember how often I’ve said it, but I’ll say it again: This one’s trouble.

He’s already been in trouble this week anyway. His excuse for whatever mischief is “But I didn’t WANT to, my body made me do it!” I understand that he needs a little attention as we’ve been pretty focussed on Ethan’s recovery, but he has been more than a rascal. Even during special time today while Ethan was at school, I had to yell at him for knocking over the folded laundry piles for the fifth time, among other things. I’ve got a million things to do before Christmas but I was spending much-needed time with him, and darnit if he didn’t just spent his whole special time getting into trouble.

And as for Ethan, I would venture to say he’s physically back to 100%. He went back to swim lessons today for the first time, and he’s been back at school for almost a week. The first weekend was rough as we still had to give medicine, but big thanks go out to Susan – she babysat that Saturday night. I was pretty nervous about his bedtime meds but... she opened up the treat box and handed him the medicine spoon and said pick whatever you want. He tossed the antibiotics back like a shot of tequila and ripped open a pack of gummies. I’m so glad he had his appetite back, and the bribery worked! We kept up with the treat diet until the antibiotics were all done. He’s back to regular food and was counting the days until he could run around again. His voice still sounds funny and Kermitty, but we’re only at 2 weeks post-op so that could still improve.

Mentally – sigh. Clingy doesn’t even BEGIN to cover his behaviour. I love that he loves me and all, but he says it at least 100 times a day. E’s very whiny and he needs hugs ALL the time. Mike was in LA for a week (just got back yesterday) so I was desperate for a little relief. Even if I needed to go to the bathroom, he would sit outside and whimper until I was done. And speaking of which, he christened the bear Briana sent “Whimper”. No kidding. I am really trying very hard to give him what he needs – I realize he was absolutely traumatized by this surgery – but it is hard. And I can’t sleep. It’s too quiet! No snoring is an alarm to me, so I lie in bed every night staring at the ceiling, wondering if I should be running down the hall. Altogether, I am so glad he doesn’t have the apnea any more, but this has been a challenge. We really are very lucky that we have our health and this is all we have had to deal with.

I am so behind on Christmas. I knew I would be house-bound, but I didn’t expect to be couch-bound and unable to even use a free hand to order presents online. Ethan would not allow that kind of distraction. However, by late last week, we did manage to venture to my parents’ place last Thursday, and to Jen’s for dinner Friday night. We even went to Marcus’ birthday party on Saturday, and to the Christmas tree farm too.

Now if I could just get one boy to stop peeing on the other, I’d be laughing!

The Tonsillectomy, or as we like to call it, Medicine Hell.

Two posts in one day! This one's a long one; grab a cup of coffee and settle in...

Prior to Surgery
Ethan was getting very sad and anxious about it – we had taken a book out of the library that was supposed to help him by demystifying the whole event. Instead, in his words, “It just makes me feel in my tummy like I’m getting my tonsils out right now.” So after realizing that I’m grossing him out – just like I would be if I were in his place – we abandoned the prep attempt. We reserved our babysitters and rallied the grandparents (essentially the same thing!) and Susan came the night before, after a giant snowstorm threw a spanner in the works. We were worried now about making it to the hospital in time for our 7:30 am check-in. Ethan’s pre-op fast began after dinner Sunday night. I was too nervous to sleep, just as I was for the whole previous week.

Day of Surgery
5:55 am
The alarm goes off and I hop into the shower.
6:10 am
Mike has his shower and I go to wake Ethan. He immediately starts to cry, “I don’t want to go!” It takes three of us to dress him (kicking and screaming).
6:30 am
I scramble around, trying to make sure everything we need is packed, and that Jack’s preschool stuff is together for the next day. In the flurry we forget to leave a key for Susan or my parents to lock up later. I also almost forget to give Susan her car keys back after pulling her car out of the driveway so we can get out. Mike sets Ethan up with a movie playing on the iPod so he relaxes enough to watch that as we drive. I think this was the only way he would have gotten in the car!
6:45 am
The roads aren’t as bad as we’d feared, although they’re starting to flood. It was pouring through the night, and it got warmer so the snow is melting – but there’s nowhere for all the wet to go.
7:20 am
We park and check in at the reception for Child and Youth Services at Surrey Memorial Hospital. We recite his allergies for the first of a hundred times that day.
7:40 am
We are installed in a room in the CYS ward. Ethan’s nervous, we try to grab a video to play for him but there’s business to take care of first: weighing him, taking his blood pressure and his temperature. He gets weighed no problem but has a FIT when it’s time for the “arm hug” and the thermometer.
7:50 am
Paula, the child psychologist, comes in with a book full of photos of other children going through all the same steps Ethan will go through today. They’ve done a wonderful job of explaining everything to make it less scary but he’s still terrified. She tells him that they promise not to lie to him ever. If something’s going to hurt, they’ll tell him – but these procedures won’t hurt. He still screams through the arm hug blood pressure reading and the placing of “marshmallows” on his hands – white numbing cream under clear bandages so it won’t hurt when he gets the IV. They leave us with instructions to dress him in the surgical pyjamas, and for me to dress myself in the cover-all thing, complete with paper slippers and an awesome hat.
8:05 am
Slightly sweating, I manage to complete Ethan’s pyjama dressing. Mike has had to take a walk to calm down or he might have broken Ethan’s arms trying to get him into those darn things while he was kicking and screaming. We have to add extra bandages to contain the numbing marshmallows as he’s partially torn them off.
9:45 am
We’re still waiting in our room. Dr. McNeilly (I think) comes in to say that he needs to assess E’s cough that they detected during his fit earlier. Although he did cough a bit, I think it was more freak-out related since he hasn’t coughed at all since. Regardless, they have shuffled the schedule to do this assessment so now he won’t go in for a while.
10:00 am
Ethan starts to complain about being hungry. Uh-oh, here we go.
11:35 am
The guy with a bad attitude shows up to transfer Ethan to a portable bed to wheel him to surgery. Mike doesn’t even get a chance to say goodbye as we sprint off down the hall.
11:45 am
We’re in the hallway outside the OR. E looks very cute in his slippers, scrubs and hat, but he’s very pale – he’s scared to death. He hops off the bed when told and holds my hand as we walk into the OR, but when the anaesthesiologist asks him to get up onto the bed, I turn around to help him and he’s bolting for the door! We wrestle him onto the table and with me on his shoulders and holding one hand, the OR nurse holding tummy and other hand, Dr. Kwak on his legs and Dr. McNeilly holding his head, he screams his way to sleep. I get to kiss his cheek and I’m whisked out the door. Dr. Kwak comes with me and tells me the surgery will be quick, and then they’ll get us just before he wakes up in recovery. I’m crying pretty hard at this point and make several wrong turns trying to find our room again.
12:10 pm
Mike and I get food from the cafeteria and eat it back at the room. Tastes like cardboard.
12:30 ??
We get called to the Recovery waiting room where we – you guessed it – wait a little longer.
1:30 ??
He’s awake! We get called in to see him and are told he’s doing well, by all accounts. I still want to cry; he’s so small in that big bed and the recovery area is so... hospitallish. He’s trying to talk through rubber lips and tongue and it’s adorable and heart-breaking all at once. We need a post-op translator! He’s worried because his surgery slippers came off, and he thinks he’s in trouble for that. He also wants to make sure that Daddy eats the same things as him; so when he’s offered a popsicle he wants Daddy to get one too.
2:15 pm
We’re taken back to room 115. He’s doing great; his colour is returning to normal and the fuzziness is fading from his speech. He gets the first of what will be six popsicles that afternoon. He also gets juice and ice chips. Not surprisingly, he’s stopped talking about being hungry.
3:00 pm
Grandma (Kittycat) and Granddad bring Jack to visit. Ethan is very pleased to see them and they’ve given him a stuffed dog who, later that night, he christens “Tonsil”. My dad runs out to get Ethan a slurpee, which he tackles immediately. He is in really good spirits and gets his arm hugs and vitals checked with no complaints.
4:15 ??
After Grandma and Granddad leave, Mike takes Jack home too. E and I watch videos, play cards and do some crafts. He’s drinking lots and feeling good.
6:05 pm
I decide to run up to the cafeteria before they close. On the way out, I bump into Gramps and Connie trying to find E’s room. I take them to visit while I eat. E’s happy they’re there, loves the balloons they’ve brought, and they have a good visit.
7:05 pm
E and I are alone. He’s getting a bit quiet, but he says he’s not ready for bed yet. We’re told he has to go on an overnight monitor as his apnea could be pretty bad tonight. It’s nice to know that the nurses will respond if he stops breathing – it’s usually me running down the hall to shift his position!
8:50 pm
We finally get E hooked up to the sleep monitor, then read a few more books.
9:40 pm
Ethan’s very sad; he misses Daddy and Jack. We call home so he can say good night to Daddy again. I crawl into his hospital bed with him and hug him as he falls asleep.
10:05 pm
E falls asleep. I make up my bed and get ready to go to sleep.
10:45 pm
Just as I’m laying down, he wakes up crying from a nightmare. As I’m soothing him, the nurse comes in to give him his meds. OH. MY. GOD. My own nightmare begins. He screams, he flails, he’s SO upset.
11:45 pm
We finally get the Tylenol down. Nurse Stephanie is an angel.
?:?? am
He’s been up every 10 – 15 minutes. I haven’t even gotten back into my bed.
2:?? am
Stephanie comes back in – no meds this time, just vitals. The apnea monitor had started beeping again but he’d started breathing by the time she got to the room.
3:?? am
Uh-oh. More medicine. This time it only (!) takes 30 minutes.
6:15 am
A nurse slams the door open, mutters sorry, and backs out, closing the door again. WTF? I’d finally gotten to sleep on the corner of Ethan’s bed, with the cold metal guardrail lodged in my back. E’s sleeping, though – he hasn’t woken up since 4.
7:00 am
Stephanie comes back to give one last dose before she goes off shift. He opens his mouth without protest and she’s out of the room in 30 seconds. Somebody please tell me why he wasn’t like that in the middle of the night?

The Recovery
Tuesday
We’re discharged and Mike picks us up after dropping Jack at preschool. Ethan is starting to fade a bit, and is very huggy and clingy. We get him home and drop off his prescription for the antibiotics. We go through the first nightmare medicine dose of Tylenol (grape flavour) and amoxicillin (banana berry flavour). Apparently he feels we are poisoning him, and the only way to get it down him is to literally sit on him and hold his nose until he opens his mouth to breathe. I am crying every time; it’s excruciating to do this. He gets balloons and a teddy bear from Aunty Briana and the gang, but he's not cheered up much. Tuesday night, Grandma (Sugar) stops by and E’s a bear. He’s just miserable and very traumatized by the whole ordeal. The night is tough, too, as I sleep on the trundle bed in his room. He doesn’t snore any more, and the trigger for me to wake up and stop his apnea has always been the cessation of snoring. So this night, my “no snore” radar is on high and I check him every 5 minutes, it seems. He sleeps peacefully in between medication forcefeeds.

Wednesday
Today I get up early – I have to train a class from 9-5. I miss my first bus so I’m running 15 minutes late, I still have to drop a toy off at the Toy Drive but I miss the pancake breakfast. I am frantically trying to set up my classroom when the first participants arrive. I start class at 9:02 and it goes well, but I phone home every break. Things aren’t going well at home. Mike drops Jack off at daycare for the day, but Ethan pukes in the car on the way over. It’s all medicine that comes up, so it’s probably an anxiety-puke after a forcefeed. E and Mike have a hard day. It takes me forever to get home – I leave early but it takes me twice as long. I stop for a slurpee and a freezie on the way home, but Ethan refuses both. Desperate to give him some energy, I feed him ketchup for dinner – the only thing he will take. He eats one spoonful, then two of applesauce. He goes to bed exhausted and I collapse on his trundle again. The night goes a little better; we decide not to wake him for his Tylenol and he sleeps in 4 hour stretches, only waking up to have water. Overall I get 7 hours sleep so I’m feeling more human.

Thursday
We get up and get the Rabbit-man to preschool. I wear my dark glasses – thankfully it’s sunny out! E’s a little better but the medicine – dear God! I take a little longer getting Jack, stopping to buy Ethan some comfy pyjamas. I have the Cars movie timed perfectly and arrive home just as the credits are rolling. He’s stopped talking altogether, only using his voice when he’s pleading me not to sit on him for his meds. His voice has changed, too, it’s higher and Kermit the Froggy. It also makes him sound younger and more vulnerable. When will I stop crying? My parents visit, and uncharacteristically E wants nothing to do with them. It’s heartbreaking for them, and an indication of how bad he’s feeling. I cuddle him all day long. He’s traumatized and depressed. Susan stops by on her way home from work, and he’s thankfully perked up since the last medicine. 4 pm to 7:30, he feels great so Susan is able to stay for dinner. He eats! He has the equivalent of one egg between breakfast and lunch, and plain pasta for dinner – two helpings! Susan heads for home and Mike has to run out, so the bedtime meds are all on me. Me, J, and E all end up sobbing in each other’s arms. I tell him I can’t do my job as a mommy if he won’t try to do what the nurses asked of him. I also warn him (not for the first time) that we’ll be back in hospital if he keeps this up. PJs and bed and lots of “I love you”s shortly after, and he sleeps 12 hours. I’m ecstatic!

Friday
We all wake up in better spirits. We are able to take our time getting up as nobody has to be anywhere. Ethan has two pieces of apple cake for breakfast and lots to drink. Medicine is still the same but we’ve now told him we’re only doing Tylenol if he has a fever, or if he wants it for pain. We’re not pushing it any more. Lunch goes well – more pasta. Just around noon, we peek in his throat again and we’re not sure it looks so good. It’s disgusting in there anyway, all white and black and a stench you would not believe. But we are unprepared for the rim of red that is appearing around the surgery site. I call Dr. Kwak and he’s in the OR until 4 pm. So I take him to the clinic and they don’t seem too worried. She listens to his lungs and tells him it’s ok to spit some of his drool instead of swallowing it. Then he won’t cough on it and irritate the throat more. She is unfortunately exposed to the smell of his breath too, but she assures me she’s seen it before. Ethan has a good afternoon and Dr. Kwak phones shortly before 5 pm. He’s very reassuring and tells me that the red and pink is new tissue growing, which is a very good thing. If there was bleeding we would need to get to the ER pronto. Or “stat” as they say on the medical shows. Ethan eats and drinks well, and even has a jam sandwich after dinner. For the very first time, he takes his own medicine from the measuring spoon. It takes him a few minutes, and several gulps of water in between, but I am so proud. He goes to bed actually smiling. Me too.

Hopefully this trend will continue. Keep the little man in your thoughts and let’s wish for a speedy recovery, for all of our sakes!

Christmas Rush

Looking back on the weeks since I last posted, it has really been a blur. Not only is it such a crazy time of year, but I was so stressed out with dread and preparation for Ethan’s tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy. Having said that, there were some great times in there too - 25 Club was one. We all got together at Montage Spa in Walnut Grove for manicures and pedicures, food and wine. Since we’re becoming spa connoisseurs of sorts – we do this every year – we were pleasantly surprised to find out that Montage met all of our criteria for a successful group event and we may break with tradition and do the same place again next year! Carrie had arranged for us to have a private shopping party afterwards at a boutique two doors down, which only added to the glamour of the day. The store owner had put out wine, cheese and crackers and locked the door behind us, so we were able to try on clothes with the benefit of personal shoppers and honest opinions from our closest friends. After closing my eyes while signing my Mastercard slip, I have to say I think it was worth their while to stay open two hours late. The store owner had phoned ahead for us to a great little Indian restaurant only four doors away, so our paparazzi life continued for another few hours. Again, everything was excellent.
Snap back to reality the next morning as the boys run in and jump on me. We’ve had a very cold snap and snow arrived suddenly on the 26th – lots of it. We were at the YMCA for swimming lessons, inside only an hour, and when we came out our car was covered! We’re only a five minute drive away normally, but it took 40 minutes to get home. We’ve played outside, made snowmen, had snowball fights, and warmed up by the fire. Ethan and I were in front of the fireplace, using my scarf to make shapes and guess what each other had made. This game was sweet, and we made snails, letters, faces, and Ethan even made a breast cancer ribbon. It was a big loop, and he said, “You know, Mummy, the pink ribbon from your coat so nobody gets sick any more.” I was quite touched, but then the next shape he made was not so sweet – he decided to make a penis. Sigh.
Speaking of sweet and not-so-sweet, E. came home from school one day and told me a friend had forgotten his snack, so he offered to share his. I told him how nice that was and that I was proud of him for helping a friend. He then told me exactly what he had shared – two goldfish crackers and two raisins. So generous!
I have been on edge with Lazy Jack lately. Since he was a baby, he’s been so lazy about certain things he expects the parents to do for him. It started as an infant – he would NEVER hold his own bottle. He didn’t care and would just lay there with limp arms while you juggled everything to feed him. Nursing him was way easier since you at least had one arm free (necessary when you also have a toddler jumping around). He also doesn’t care about getting dressed and is never helpful like Ethan was in pushing his own arms out of the sleeves. He waits for you to pull them out. The final straw is that in 3½ years he still hasn’t got the fact that we want him to pull his arms out of his car seat straps once we’ve undone the buckle. Seems simple, but it sends me over the edge. So I lost it a couple of weeks ago and I said (yelled?), “Jack – it’s been 3½ years; you should know to take your arms out of your f&*^king seat!” Not my most stellar moment. Once we’re out of the car and walking down the sidewalk, J says, “Why did you say f&*^king, Mummy?” I replied that I was sorry, I was just frustrated. He replies, “Well, I am fer-uss-terated with you, too, Mummy, we are fer-uss-terated with each other!”
We managed to get a couple of Christmas-related jobs out of the way; the most important of which was the photo with Santa, which we did the day before Ethan’s surgery. It’s very cute! Now I just have to assemble an address list, write cards, print photos to put in cards, send cards, shop for Christmas, wrap, make goodies, go to Christmas parties, get E ready for his Christmas concert, and in the midst of all that, prepare for Belize. That’s all!

The Week in Review

The boys have great senses of humour, honest. Just when you hear the following conversation between them, you may not believe it.

Knock, Knock!
Who’s there?
Lantern.
Lantern who?
Lanterns can’t talk.

So we move on to:

Knock, Knock!
Who’s there?
You.
You who?
(this one may be more promising…)
You aren’t a lantern.
(OK, so this joke sucked, too.)

Aaron gave Ethan a Knock Knock book ages ago, and I’m sorry to report that it hasn’t rubbed off. At all.

This week I made Jambalaya, Mike’s favourite dinner ever. I made his with spicy sausage and extra cayenne. Then I made a second version for me with veggie sausage and less spice. Finally, the boys’ version had veggie sausage, no spice, and was made with “ketchup” – tomato sauce really. So after me cooking for 2 hours, the only one who enjoyed his dinner was Mike. I have a hard time enjoying my meal when one boy is crying hysterically because “his dinner stinks… and it doesn’t even LOOK good” and the other is riding along on his brother’s discontent. All this after just having a conversation last weekend about trying to teach the boys table manners, because we don’t want to turn out like other children we’ve seen, etc. I was humbled tonight, let me tell you. I eventually just left the room after telling Ethan how much he had hurt my feelings.

We had a fantastic time last weekend on our Scavenger Hunt. It was adults only, and we had a list of digital photos to get, and tons of items to scavenge, all in the space of 2 hours. We all met here and divided into 3 teams of 4 people by drawing a bandanna out of a sack. Our team was Mike, me, Chad and Kim and we kicked butt. Seriously – Team Green got 505 points, and the other two got 360 and 305. We were having a great time, and then it came to judging where we all judged the other teams. I have never heard it so loud in this house! It was hysterical!

The next day, we picked up the boys and Grandma and went for burgers at Red Robin. Mike dropped me off at a Christmas-card-making party and then he took them to their friend Gavin’s birthday party. They ended up by going to the fire hall – fun for Jack; not so much for Ethan who had a little fit about being inside there. His claustrophobia again? I don’t know.

We celebrated American Thanksgiving this week, too. Mike’s company sent us a giant honey-baked ham so I made a big meal with that, potatoes, squash, and amazing “haricots frites” – green beans blanched, then tossed quickly in hot oil with sesame seeds. So good! Then we had apple pie and vanilla ice cream for dessert – yum!

Little Tidbits

17 children in one Undersea Garden birthday party is about 15 too many for my head. I am SO glad Liam had a great time – so did our boys and Hannah too – but I think the adults would all concur that we were glad for a little caffeine boost and cake pick-me-up at the Spaghetti Factory after!

Ethan’s tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy are scheduled for Monday, December 3rd. I am looking forward to correcting the sleep apnea but scared to death about the surgery. Even more so, I dread the recovery for my little drama king. Or, more accurately, how Mike and I will handle his recovery.

Hours without power due to windstorm: 13-1/2. Hours spent playing board games by candlelight: 4. Hours without internet and phone due to windstorm: 31. Hours Mike went crazy: 31.

While we’re on statistics, approximate number of times I visit Costco per year: 57. I should buy stock.

Note: my boy Becks looks just as good in person from 15 feet away as he does on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Our front row seats to the LA Galaxy vs. Vancouver Whitecaps game were priceless. Sigh. I love Beckham – er, soccer.

It’s very unsettling to hear your 5 year-old call his 3-1/2 year-old little brother “you old bugger”.

Interesting how one boy’s “happy song” (repeated over and over, it’s true) makes the other boy SO mad he screams until he loses control altogether and knocks the happy brother off his stool and ends up on the naughty mat for 5 minutes.

I have exactly 1 hour and 57 minutes between dropping Jack off at preschool and leaving to pick Ethan up at Kindergarten, twice a week. I can do more in that 1 hour and 57 minutes than in 12 hours of time with the boys. Yet somehow, I never feel I’ve accomplished QUITE enough!

I am in my seventh week of my healthier plan. I do 3-4 cardio workouts a week, 1-2 Yoga session, and sometimes 1 weights session too. Despite a two-week back injury at the end of September, a chocolate-tasting party, and two binge days at Halloween, I am overall doing very well. Eating better consistently is easy as long as I allow myself some treat at the end of each day. A small square of dark chocolate fits the bill every time! My goals are: bikini in Belize for New Year’s, Sprint distance triathlon in April and Olympic distance triathlon in July or August.

Ethan and Jack have created something “fun” called the Fart Zone. This involves surrounding me and farting multiple times, then laughing hysterically when I scramble out of the area. I am alarmed since they are only 3 and 5 and they can fart on command. Not cool. What else is in store for me in this house?

Coming up: reports on our second annual Scavenger Hunt (to be held this Saturday)! Have a great week everyone!

Sugar Highs and Embarrassing Lows

Halloween has come and gone for another year. The boys had a fantastic time and somehow or other, their costumes survived through a party on Saturday night, being worn to school and to daycare on Wednesday, and through Trick-or-treating. They were adorable and everyone loved their costumes. But the past few days have been difficult for me, as the kids come down off their sugar high and are acting beastly. Ethan’s teacher popped her head out of the classroom just before dismissal today and said that she’s going to make sure Halloween comes during the summer holidays next year so she doesn’t have to deal with the aftermath! I guess she’s dealing with the beastlies too.

Speaking of beasts, we are having a very hard time getting Ethan to eat meat these days. He’s made the connection that chicken is Chicken, fish is Fish and turkey is Turkey – so he refuses to eat any of those things. I look at him and can see his little mind getting grossed out as he stares at his plate. And who am I to judge, really, when I am a “vegetarian+chicken” myself and I struggle mentally to eat anything other than veggies (or chocolate, but that comes from a cocoa bean, so same thing). We have been very evasive on the origins of ham and beef, but he is extremely suspicious. For the past three weeks, his protein has come in the form of meatballs, sausages, and soy cheese. So if he asks you what animal any of these things come from, please avoid the question. It’s not like we can add peanut butter to his repertoire to “beef” him up! And I have been noticing lately just how thin he is. He eats all the time, no kidding, we jump from breakfast to snack to second snack to lunch to three-snack afternoon to dinner, and you can still see the kid’s ribs clear as day. He doesn’t have an ounce of fat on him, and I never would have thought I would say that about him after his first year of pudgy life. Some of you may remember his nickname: “El Puerco” – the pig. We had to lift the rolls of fat on his arms and legs to get him clean in the bath. He was 8 lbs 11 oz at birth AND he was born nearly a month early. I honestly don’t know how we will afford to feed this guy once he’s a teenager.

And when it comes to bellies, we are anticipating a giant growth spurt from Jack. He’s like a comic strip character – he gets a very impressive Buddha belly, then his feet pop up a size, then he grows an inch. Since he’s still very small for his age, he could use a few inches. He’s desperate to get into that Ikea playroom! The poor little guy just split his lip again – who knows how, and I was less than two feet from him when it happened – and he has a double knot on his forehead. He already had a bruise and a knot up there from doing something at the Halloween party last weekend (what? We have no idea…), and just in time for school pictures, too. Then last night Mike was playing a game of tag with them, and Mike jumped out of the way as Jack supermanned at him. Jack’s momentum carried him headfirst into the side of the ottoman, where we heard a big thwack. He turned around and his knot was now a giant green double knot. Lovely. And he insisted on wearing his Mongolian hat (sent by Uncle Mark some months ago) to drop Ethan off at school today, which only accentuated the giant lump. I should have just drawn an arrow in Sharpie on his forehead, pointing to the bruise, with a label that says “I neglect my kids”.

I have been compiling a list of embarrassing stories for a while to present to you. The following stories are all TRUE and they all unfortunately happened to ME. Here you go:
1. While in WalMart a while back, I unexpectedly had to purchase some monthly feminine supplies, if you get my drift. I then wheeled the double stroller into the large wheelchair stall at the end of the bathroom and proceeded to take care of business. Ethan asks in an echoing voice, "Why are you wearing a diaper, Mummy?" Up and down the row of stalls, I hear muffled snickers. I hotly explained to Ethan that pantiliners were to protect underwear and that they were NOT diapers! I stayed in that stall for a long time until I was sure there were all new people in the bathroom.
2. Ethan is buying a long-stemmed silk flower for a friend for her birthday, and he loves how long it is. While in line to pay for the flower, he holds it up to me and says nice and loudly, "It comes all the way up to your vagina, Mummy!" Sudden silence from all who are waiting in line.
3. Often after a trip to Zellers, and only if they've been decent, we'll stop for one small Purdy's chocolate each. There was one day they totally did NOT deserve it. After I said no, Jack ran over into Purdy's and threw himself down on the floor onto the Purdy's purple logo tile. To my horror, he actually started LICKING the floor. One sweet old lady said, "Oh just get him some chocolate, dear!"
4. We hit Save-On-Foods every Monday morning around 10 am. We often get the same check-out lady and on this occasion, she asked the boys what they had been up to that morning. "Well", Ethan says, "Mummy really needed vodka." (Our first errand had been the liquor store, but let me stress that I had NOT imbibed any!) She took it in stride and silently handed the boys a sticker each.
5. I'm paying a parking ticket at the City Hall counter when all of a sudden Jack runs at me from behind and head-butts me (It's literally a head-butt - his head, my butt); I slam into the counter. Both clerks and the two other customers jump and I mumble "sorry he must think he's a mountain goat or something". Just then Jack grabs fistfuls of my butt cheeks in each hand and yells "you have a beautiful butt Mummy". I'm immediately scarlet and the ladies have tears in their eyes and are howling and telling their co-workers all about it as I slink out. (As a side note – I was telling my friend Carla this story and as we’re laughing about it, her son whips a tampon out of her purse and starts waving it around. So it’s not only my kids who enjoy embarrassing me!)

Well kids, I say this to you: payback's a bitch. And I WILL embarrass you completely, incredibly, awfully. I will save it until your teenage years and for your wedding day. But best of all I am keeping photographic evidence of you and your idiosyncrasies and you can bet that your first girlfriends are going to see it. All of it. So go on with your embarrassing selves. I am patient and I will wait.