Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Ty Update

Still coughing, still running fever, still river-nosed, but according to the dr, not sick enough for meds. Must be a virus, fluids, rest, blah blah blah. Poor little nugget!

And this morning Phoenix was complaining of a cough! ARRRGGGHHH!

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Poor Little Muffin!

Poor Tiggeroo is sick. Croupy, harsh cough that sounds like it is ripping his chest in half. Runny nose. Fever of 102.4 F.

I complain all the time about how busy he is; always getting into everything and how I can't turn my back on him for a second. And now, he just sits on my lap for hours on end, and cries if I put him down for any reason. Dare I say it? I miss his energy. It breaks my heart to see him so listless and sad.

"Are you okay?" I asked him this morning. "Oh Money, (combo of Mommy and Honey, I like to think;))", he said and started to cry. Then he toddled over to the couch and looked out the window to the driveway. "Daddy...." he whispered. Soon, soon, he'll be home soon. Mark is taking him to the dr's at 3:40. Will update after.

Monday, February 26, 2007

Why? I Ask You, WHY?!?!?!?!?

Dear Neighbour,

Why!

Why is it necessary to snow-blow your driveway at 5:35 am? There's not THAT much snow!

Why do you do this on a night when Ty has come down with the croup and I only just got him to sleep?

Bastards!

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Delinquency Lives!

I apologise for the sporadic posting. It's just too freaking cold to be here in the office. My hands are chilled and my toes are approaching the frostbite zone. Maybe I should be swilling gin or something to warm me as I type.....hmmm.........

Okay, first things first. The playdate from hell.

Let me just say off the bat that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my kids, more than chocolate, and that's saying something. But other people's kids? Meh. (As Leanne would say). (But not YOUR kids. Your kids are great.)That being said, a few weeks ago, we had a PD day at Phoenix's school. His friend's mom called me up in the morning to invite Bun over for a playdate. Sure! I said. Around 1:30? Great. Two seconds later I get another phone call. Can he come over in the morning instead? Sorry, uncle and grandfather visiting at present. Okay, same time then. Bye. Two more seconds later, another phone call, asking if her son could come play at my house for about an hour, because she had a job interview and then Bun could spend the rest of the afternoon at her house. Ok.

(Also scheduled that day, was a psych assessment appointment that I had to take Keegan to, hence the brother/dad babysitting duo. Then, at 12:30, I had a meeting at my house with Keegan's resource consultant to plan our education meeting with various other people that Keegs has been seen by or tested with. Ok...)

When the boy in question arrived, I explained, SEVERAL TIMES, that I had a very important meeting, and they had to play quietly downstairs and NOT INTERRUPT. RC arrives, we start the meeting, and then the agony begins. "Um, excuse me, Phoenix's mom? I need a snack." Go away. I am in a meeting. I will deal with you and snacks later. "Excuse me, can we go play video games out in the studio?" No. Over my dead body. Go away. I am in a meeting.

Things to this nature happen again and again and again until I have to excuse myself and go and threaten death upon all of the kids in a very scary low-volume evil-mom voice.

Get back to the meeting. "Excuse me....". I turned to the child in rage, then in fearful curiosity. What is that all over your shirt? "Oh, we were giving our Webkins (stuffed animals) haircuts. I said it was okay." At this point, my head is about to explode and the RC is trying not to laugh. I run downstairs to the toy room with boy in tow, and see the beauty shop massacre all over the carpet and every child. The look on Phoenix's face was plainly "Oh F U C K ! ! ! !" Pretty much. I gave a rapid and fierce riot act, confiscated scissors and any other potentially heart-attack inducing weapons of mass destruction, and went back up to find the RC packing up. She told me she had written me notes of what she wanted to cover instead, since I was obviously not able to focus. I apologised profusely, and saw her out. Then Ty woke up. ARRGGH!

At this point, I told the boys to put on their gear and chucked them into the backyard. And did I mention that this "one hour" had turned into three? I was NOT impressed. When the mom finally arrived, with an off-hand apology for being late, and a questioning, "How was he?" I certainly did not mince words. When she, in her mortification of her child's behaviour, offered to take Phoenix for the afternoon, even dinner, I told her that I thought perhaps they had seen enough of each other that day.

So. That was my playdate from hell, in a nutshell. Do you have any playdate war stories? Share them! I want to hear "Shann, that was nothing compared to my day!"
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I hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day yesterday. In the spirit of "LOVING" I have composed a list or two. Things That Annoy the Hell Out of Me about my Hubby" and of course "Things I Love About My Hubby" and his list for me. Here goes. See if any of these things are on your own lists...

Things That Annoy Me About My Hubby
1. Snoring. Enough said.
2. How he takes up 89% of the bed, leaving me clinging to a shred of blanket and the edge of the mattress.
3. How he leaves the toilet seat up
4. How he dumps tupperware into the sink without rinsing it out, and piles dishes on the counter ABOVE the dishwasher, and yet can't take the extra 2 seconds to put them inside.
5. Taking off his socks and leaving them in balls or inside out in 100 different places in the house, none of which include the laundry basket.
6. Talking with his hands.
7. Inviting people over without consulting me first, resulting in a whirlwind of cleaning frenzy-induced anxiety for me.
8. How when I am in the middle of a rant, he interrupts and tells me to "relax". ARRGHHH!

Things I Love About My Hubby

1. He will drop anything to "you know what" even if he was sick and dying.
2. He loves to cook and 99.9% of the time, makes dinner.
3. He doesn't like chocolate so I get to eat it all!
4. He is an awesome dad.
5. He is good to his parents.
6. He makes me laugh every single day.
7. He is handy, and can fix most electrical and plumbing issues and does all of the outside gardening work.
8. He feels sorry for my hands, and has taken over bathing the kids duty.
9. How he is always warm as toast and doesn't mind me placing various body parts on him to leach out the heat into my frozen limbs.

Things That I Do to Annoy the Hell out of my Hubby

1. Insist on checking my e-mail right when he is about to do some work in the office.
2. Leaving piles of miscellaneous crap on tables, saying that I am still using it, and will put it away later.
3. How I put off putting away laundry until I have no choice.
4. How I would rather read than do anything else.
5. That I abhor most types of physical activity.
6. How when I drink a Coke, I only open the can a little bit, and not the whole way, and don't suck off the pop from the rim after every sip. (This for some reason drives him insane, so of course, I do it now just to piss him off...)
7. How I will put the milk back in the fridge, even though there is only a 6 drops left in the bag, because I may use it in my cup of tea later.

Thing My Hubby Loves About Me

1. The fact that I am gorgeous, dead-sexy and not to mention, modest.
2. Big boobs.
3. When I wear my hair in a pony tail.
4. My sarcasm. (Yes, there are people who see it for the art it is!)
5. That I am a good mom.
6. That I am close with my family and his.
7. That I do all the stuff he hates, like sorting mail, reading and deleting crap e-mail from his in-box, cleaning toilets, doing laundry and assisting homework.
8. When I laugh in bed, silently as to not wake the kids and the whole bed vibrates. He always says "I don't remember putting a quarter in the bed!"


I am sure that I am leaving out a million things on all four lists but, there you go. No matter what the annoyances are, I love him, and couldn't live without him. And he loves me too, and is too scared to leave ;)

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Thursday, February 08, 2007

As Promised, The Before and After Hand Shots

















As you can see, my hands looks much better now, as opposed to before. Eww...gross. But, the 4-step program works. What can I say? Don't get your hands wet. Don't get your hands wet. Don't get your hands wet. Use Prevex-B. I can even wear my wedding rings again! For the first time in years!

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Wednesday Morning Serenade

I woke up this morning to a serenade under my bedroom window; a guy with an icy body and icicles dripping from his nose. I think his name is "Weather Man"...singing:

I'm Mister White Christmas
I'm Mister Snow
I'm Mister Icicle
I'm Mister Ten Below
Friends call me Snow Miser,
What ever I touch
Turns to snow in my clutch
I'm too much!

He's Mister White Christmas
He's Mister Snow
That's right!
He's Mister Icicle
He's Mister Ten Below
Friends call me Snow Miser,
What ever I touch
Turns to snow in my clutch
He's too much!

I never want to see a day
That's over forty degrees
I'd rather have it thirty,
Twenty, ten, five and let it freeeeEEEEEEeeze!

He's Mister White Christmas
He's Mister Snow
That's right!
He's Mister Icicle
He's Mister Ten Below
Friends call me Snow Miser,
What ever I touch
Turns to snow in my clutch... too much.
Too Much!

Too much is right! Kripes. It's freaking cold. -27C with the windchill! Can you say frozen baby cheeks? It's been a damn cold week or so here, and we have been miserably house-bound as a result. Which is part of the reason why I have been lazy in posting. One, the kids are always underfoot to bug me with their constant, yet inane demands and questions, and two, the weather outside equals freezing cold basement. My office is there. As is the computer. So, I either type as fast as I can, or, say screw it, and head upstairs to warmer temperatures, a good book, and a steaming mug of tea. Like I have been doing for the last while.

But, after more than a few inquires as to my whereabouts, I have decided to lock the kids in the toy room watching Cars for the 1000000th time, and brave the chill.

What's new, what's new...

Well, Phoenix is on the verge of losing his second baby tooth, and makes me wiggle it at every opportunity so he can cash it in for $ with the Tooth Fairy/Tooth Beaver. He is saving up for a new Webkinz. Have you heard of these? I may have mentioned them before. They are stuffed animals that come with a code that gives you access to KinzWorld, where you can design a room for your Kinz and play games and stuff. Pretty ingenious money-maker; every kid in Phoenix's class has at least two of them. (I admit, I have one too, a leopard named Micah.)

Keegan is half-way through his psycho-educational assessment sessions. He loves going; always new things to try and play with. His assessment with the Occupational Therapist indicated that he needs to build up his core strength (through the torso) so we have daily workout sessions with therabands, doing pilate-like exercises. He also needs to work on his fine motor as well, as he has a weak grasp and this makes things like holding a pencil difficult for him. Speech therapy is also coming along. We are currently working on sequencing and the ubiquitous 3-step directions.

Ty is still a little troublemaker. But damn, he's too cute! New things include (as just announced by Keegan) taking shelves off of the wall, scattering movie cases and -oh fun!- sticking his hands in the fishtank. He's just a whirlwind of busy-ness. No wonder he's not talking. It would take too much time away from raising hell!

Just got off of the phone with my friend Leanne, who has put up the idea of taking a girls' trip together next winter (Feb/March) with our mutual friend Kris. I am LOVING this idea. I am pretty confident that Mark will encourage it. He knows I need to run away and decompress, and this is a perfect opportunity.

I have been returning to the classics, book-wise lately. I recently read Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and was itching the smack Tess by the end. It irks me how dumb some characters are. Today I am reading Wuthering Heights, which I am quite enjoying so far, and I have Emma left to read.

Oh, I also read "Through A Looking Glass Darkly". I recommend it. Good chunky read. Now, of course, I feel obligated to go and buy the prequel and sequel...Oh! Speaking of sequels, I am too excited about the Harry Potter book coming out this summer. I loved all the other books. I know that there are a lot of people out there that have not read any of them as they refuse to give into the hype, but trust me! They're great!

I have a story to tell but no time right now. I will try to get back in here tonight to recount to you the tale of "THE WORST PLAYDATE EVER" which occured here last Friday... stay tuned.

Shann out.