Mother's Day

      I had a lovely Mother's Day this past weekend filled with nice weather, good food, and great company. Josh's parents came up for a visit and spoiled us all rotten, as usual. They arrived Saturday around lunchtime and proceeded to shower us with gifts: souvenirs from their trip to Cuba, myriads of new clothes for Laura, flowers for Mother's Day, etc. 

     Josh and I had hoped to start putting in our new front walkway this weekend while we had babysitters available. Big Al can't let a home renovation go unsupervised, so off he, Josh and I trotted to the hardware store to get cement and all the other supplies we needed. He ended up buying Josh a wheelbarrow for Father's Day (not to be confused with Son's Day) to mix the cement in. Anyway, it was very much appreciated as it was a very necessary and useful tool for our project. We spent a good portion of the day doing that, took a break for dinner, and then did a bit more. 

prepping the new walkway

at the end of day 1

     While we worked, Grandma got her Laura fix doing a fabulous job babysitting. So fabulous that Laura didn't want to nap. She had a quick cat nap in the stroller for maybe half an hour, and then proceeded to stay up until about 9:00. Grandma is too much fun! 

     After we finally got Laura to bed, I had a nice long bubble bath with a glass of wine. Trowelling cement all day really does a number on your neck! 

     We had a rough night Saturday night with Laura sleeping (or lack of sleeping I guess I should say), so I was a bit of a grump Mother's Day morning, which Josh took the brunt of. He tried to appease me with flowers, however, it was all made better by the amazing brunch we went out for at the golf & country club, of which we are now members thanks to Josh's work. 

 Bonnet Baby, affectionately dubbed The Frilled Lizard :)
(Laura's sweater and bonnet were made by Colette)

After brunch at the country club ♥

     On our way home from brunch, Laura fell asleep in the car and proceeded to nap for a good three hours. We used this time to our advantage as the guys got back to work on the walkway and Colette and I ventured out to a garden centre to look for some plants. We found a nice looking assortment of shade plants for a small garden I was hoping to make in the back yard (pictures to follow), and I'm looking forward planting them and getting our yard to a functioning state (rather than just the dog pasture that it is right now). After we got back, I resumed my position as cement troweller and we got all of the full blocks done that we could. Colette and Al had to head home in the afternoon, so we stopped there for the day. 

at the end of day 2
Now we just need to fiddle with the edge pieces to fill in the gaps,
sweep sand into all the cracks, and repair the lawn along the edges
and voila - new walkway! :)

Trees are budding, birds are singing and tulips are blooming! :D

     We laid low for the rest of the afternoon, and then Josh made dinner for us. His homemade cheesplosion burgers (mmmmmm) and oven fries. No vegetables in sight. :)

     After dinner we headed out for Josh's first baseball game of the season. It's been a while since I've been on the sidelines of a sports field, and I sure missed it!

The first two innings didn't go so well and the other team got a sizable lead,
but once our team found their groove they were able to get a couple runs in.
It was fun either way though, and Josh didn't want the game to end. haha  

Laura's favourite part was playing with the gravel

Chester and Marisa were part of the cheering squad too :)

     After the game we came home and put Laura to bed, enjoyed a cup of tea, and played some Mario Kart. 
     Great weekend!

Tell Us How You Really Feel

     Yesterday Canada voted for a new Prime Minister.
     Stephen Harper now has a conservative majority government, where any bills can be passed with confidence at the sole discretion of one party. 
     I'm scared.
 
     Voting is such a complicated process in Canada; there are so many things to take into consideration. Some of the promises made on the Conservative platform weren't all bad, but you still need to keep in mind who your leader will be should you choose to vote in their favour. He is not the face I want representing my country. He just seems so much less professional than he should (being a leader of a country and all), from changing the name of The Government of Canada to Harper Government (who does that?!), to illegally suspending parliament, to supposedly having phone calls made to certain ridings telling them their polling station locations had changed when they actually hadn't, among many, many other shady things. :S 
     It would be one thing if he was a good guy and was voted in, even though I didn't choose to elect him, but not only do I not see eye to eye with many of the values of this party, I also don't think Stephen Harper is enough of a trustworthy or upstanding citizen to run this country based on his track record. 
     Another problem we have is voter turnout. Last election we reached an all-time low, and this election was only slightly better (~61%), still well below the usual. I cannot comprehend how people don't care to have a say in how their hard earned money is spent! In my opinion, it's downright disrespectful to not vote, considering people have given their lives for you to have the right. But people throw themselves fullheartedly into supporting the local sports team. Go figure.
    The biggest problem though, is the way our voting system works. For one thing, we vote for a representative in our riding, which in turn dictates who our Prime Minister will be, instead of voting for a local representative and PM separately. So if you like someone in your local riding, but not necessarily the PM they back, you have to decide whether it is more important to have the candidate you want representing you, or have the the Prime Minister you want (or don't want). That was certainly the way it happened in our case. We had to vote strategically in our riding to essentially vote against the local Conservative candidate. How is that democracy? The official outcome of the election saw the Conservatives at about 40% voter support, although they ended up winning a much higher proportion of the seats in the House of Commons (~54%). If our system was a truly representative democracy, voting percentage would dictate how many seats each party got, not how many ridings they could tip.
 
     This morning I am just shaking my head at it all, and hope our country as we know it isn't destroyed before the next election four years from now. 
 
     P.S. I would like to extend my congratulations to Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, for winning her first and only seat in parliament. :) Here's to hope!

     Oh, and I forgot to add part of my rant:  ;)
     I am so sick of people voting (or not voting, as the case may be) for ridiculous reasons. Like, "so and so has a stupid name. So and so has bad eyebrows. I'm not voting because I might offend someone." COME ON!! How much effort does it take to give yourself a little education on your candidates' platforms to make and educated decision. THIS IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY AS A CANADIAN CITIZEN.

     Ok, that is all.

More Firsts and Some Other Stuff

     I haven't had much of interest to blog about lately, hence the no new posts in over a week. However, here is the latest breaking news...

     Earlier this week I started going through Laura's summer wardrobe (most of which I purchased on clearance at the end of last summer), and came to the sad realization that unless she grows about 5 inches (taller and wider) she is not going to fit much of it. So, I went through the tedious process of corralling Laura in her room and attempting to get the Changing Clothes Hater to try on multiple outfits to see if they would be passable. From there I made a mental list of items that would be multifunctional and could be used to complement what she already has. 

BEFORE: so handsome... and sheddy

     Wednesday I took Chester for a groom and went shopping for said clothes for Laura. At 14 months, she now fits well into size 9 months. :S Most of the stuff I bought her was in the 9-12 months range. Ridiculous. 

AFTER: sorta goofy looking but so soft

     When we got home, Willow had been locked up for a good portion of the day by that point, so I made sure to take her out for a pee right away. Normally we let the dogs out in the back yard, but it is quite muddy right now since we need to sod back there. So we've been denying them their daily romps, which I thought was what Willow was alluding to when she started pestering me to go out back... I ignored her and went up to Laura's room to do a final inventory check on the wardrobe. When I came back down, I was vengefully graced with an entire kitchen full of dog poop. (I have too much poop in my life these days). And I'm not even exaggerating. She must have been saving up for three days. And it reeked. So, just minutes before Josh was due home, I had to clean up probably well over a litre of doody spread throughout my kitchen (are litres an appropriate poop volume measurement? Oy.) As I was finishing anti-bacterially wiping up the last of it, Josh came through the door and immediately announces his detection of an unpleasing odour. 

     "I'm sorry, did you just spend the last 15 minutes with your face a foot from the floor cleaning up an inhumane amount of poop? No? Then you don't get to complain about the smell."

     He continued to whine for another five minutes as he ran around the house opening all the windows and turning on the fans all the while with his shirt pulled up over his face like a five-year-old (much to the amusement of Marisa). He then informed me that the smell was so unbearable he had to leave the house, and so went to buy beer. By the time he came home, we had closed the windows, because the smell was no longer detectable to us, and more to the point, it is still only a few degrees above freezing outside. He claimed it still smelled and that we should go out for dinner to avoid having to cook and eat in our kitchen. Okay, whatever. We had recently been given a gift card for a dinner out that had been burning a hole in his pocket, anyway. So off we trekked to Montana's. Laura was hungry for dinner by this point, and with being her busy self on top of that, we had quite the wait for our slow-to-arrive meal. At one point we tried to keep Laura entertained by letting her chew on the straw of my Shirley Temple. But then she figured out how to use a straw (for the first time!), and proceeded to drink more than I cared for her to have of the sugary cocktail. We ordered her a chocolate milk of her own, of which she drank a surprising amount.

      Anyway, along with her copious amounts of sugary drinks at dinner, I didn't really time the whole shopping/ grooming trip well and her naps ended up being all a skew, all of which resulted in a 9:30 bedtime instead of the usual 7:30... Nights when we fight her to go to bed end up being the worst, so that is why I didn't push her to go to bed earlier, and just took cues from her when she was actually tired. She went down without a fuss, but somehow we still ended up having a brutal night. She woke up at 1:00ish and screamed for a good 45 minutes, then she was up again at 4:00 and again just after 6:00. And when she woke up after 6:00, she decided she was up for the day and wouldn't nurse back to sleep. I was exhausted from being up with her for so much of the night, so Josh took her while he got ready for work to let me sleep a little longer, but when he had to go I was still tired and in a bad mood since I then had to get up with Her Grumpness.

     I decided since she missed her bath the night before to let her play in the tub for a while in the morning since she rarely fusses during bath time. While we were in there she started making her concentrating face... I swiftly swooped her up and put her on her potty seat, where she proceeded to poop on the potty for the first time!! Whoop! I'll be honest, I'm getting tired of dealing with poopy diapers, (and poop in general!) so this is a very welcome new proceeding here! 

The Great Poop Fiasco

     You read the title. Consider yourself warned.

     Last night was diaper laundry night. My usual routine involves putting the diapers in the wash for a "light wash" to get the nasties rinsed away, and then I do a "heavy wash" with soap for the actual cleaning. Most of the time I get Josh to turn the washer on and add the soap for the second round because he is usually already downstairs sitting at his computer right outside of the laundry room. Last night was no different. "Can you please put the diapers on for their second cycle?" I asked, which apparently he heard as, "The diapers have now already been through two washes and need to be put in the dryer. Can you please do that?" (By the way, I never ask him to do that, because it involves sorting the covers (to hang dry) from the inserts (that go in the dryer), which I feel is possibly too complicated for him, and of course he failed to notice the dials on the washer were still set the same as they are after the first cycle). 

      So, this morning I came down to collect them to be folded and, lo and behold, all my covers are hanging to dry... SWEET! Josh must have put them through the second cycle AND sorted them to dry for me! 

     ... no, wait. That would be too good to be true... there must be a more reasonable explanation. 

     "Josh! What is going on with these diapers? Did you put them on for their second wash last night AND then hang them to dry?" 

     "What? No. You asked me to put them in the dryer. Oops, I think I forgot to turn the dryer on, though." 

     Sure enough, I opened the dryer, and there were all the inserts in their only-rinsed-not-washed-still-sopping-wet glory. WITH a dryer sheet sitting on top. (And if you know anything about cloth diapering, one of the number one rules is no dryer sheets since they put that weird coating on everything in the dryer which causes the inserts to repel moisture and thereby void their only purpose in life.) 
AHHHH! 
     Well, the upside is at least he forgot to turn the dryer on, and my precious little angels are not covered in anti-static-wax causing death to absorbency.

     "Josh," I said calmly (although he may remember it differently), "we DO NOT put dryer sheets in with the diapers. I have told you that before. It ruins them."

     "But I used the baby dryer sheets!" (By which he meant the fragrance-free ones we use for her clothes that still have the waxy stuff).

     "How about, to be safe, you just don't use dryer sheets when you are putting stuff in the dryer from now on?"

     "Fine."

     Usually I have a few spare diapers while the rest are in the wash, but, of course, this time I had used the last one for her overnight diaper last night. I did have a few clean inserts I could use with one of the dry (but not necessarily clean) diaper covers, so that is what I did until I re-washed and dried her diapers. 
     Unfortunately, this is a fairly long process, and after 3 hours of being in her first diaper, I decided she could probably use some bare bum time while we were waiting for them to finish drying. I always worry about pee on the floor when we do this, but, in reality, it's not that bad to clean up pee off hard flooring. So she was running around having a liberated, grand old time being her crazy self... and then I noticed she had stopped... for more than 10 seconds... and had started making her concentrating face... and small, lady-like grunts... 

     "OH NO!! Are you pooping, Laura?!" 

     I ran over... there was nothing on the floor. Phew. Then I looked at her bare behind... a small log was forming... I scooped her up, avoiding all contact with her nether regions, and tried to jump over the baby gate to run her upstairs to the toilet before it was too late. But to no avail. The structural stability of the log had been compromised and broke off before we hit the first step. 
Splat. 

     "Chester, no!! Leave it!!" (In Chester's world, anything that falls from Laura must be food.)

      I took her up to the bathroom to let her finish (which was easier said than done since clearly we need to invest in a baby seat for the toilet) and clean her off in the tub. It had rolled off and smeared all down her legs. Ewwwww. And then, as if on cue, the dryer buzzer went off, "Your diapers are clean!!" 
Of course.

     After cleaning her off, I half expected to go back downstairs and see the floor to be all cleaned up for me. But, thankfully(?), I got to clean it up myself. Properly. 

     And fortunately, that is where my story of the day ends.

    Ahhh, the joys of being a stay-at-home mom. Moral of the story: make sure your apparently-hard-of-hearing husband hears and understands all instructions or do it yourself!

"What? I'm not pooping on the floor!"

The Stress Light

     When I was a child my mother drove us to school every morning, a 20-25 minute drive from our house in the country into town. Our mornings would be filled with rushing to get ready: making lunches and gathering bookbags and homework, etc - sounds familiar, right? Only, my sister and I were the ones who would make it out to the car first and sit and wait for Mom. Honking often ensued, if I remember correctly. Once we arrived at school, if we were lucky, we would be able to scramble in with the last stragglers. But more often than not, we were late. And the problem with being late is that everyone notices you when you come into the class and/ or you have to wait in the hall until announcements are over and usually the teacher singles you out embarrassingly. On occasion I was even reprimanded for "my" actions. Ummm, excuse me, I don't remember being the one who drove myself to school. If only you could see what goes on at our house in the mornings!

     So, having said all that, my mom was also notorious for driving around with an empty gas tank. "You still have 50 more kilometres once the gas light comes on!!" she'd say. And who has precious minutes to spare for stopping at a gas station on the way to school when mornings were as hectic as ours? .... You can probably see where I'm going with this. Many more times than I care to count, we would run out of gas on the way to school. And, if we weren't going to be late before, we certainly were  then! We would have to call my dad to come and bring us a jerry can, and I think at some point my mom invested in her own to keep in the car at all times since this predicament seemed to happen on a fairly frequent basis.

     And so my trauma of being late was born and nourished over my elementary years, permanently engraining a fervent fear of the illumination of The Gas Stress Light.

     Today I went to run some errands and visit with my sister (who lives an hour away). There was only a quarter tank of gas when I left, and I was in a rush to get to my first errand destination so didn't have time to stop for gas at our usual cheap spot (which is important now since gas is so damn expensive these days!!). Hmmmm, I probably don't have enough gas to do all my errands/ visiting and make it all the way back to our cheap spot, I thought. Oh well (I'm going to be late!), I'll deal with it on the way home. 

     Once all my running around was done and I was on my way home, the metre was on the first line above empty. Uh oh..... I'll just keep driving and see if I can make it to the cheap spot. For the love of god, turn off the air conditioning - don't you know that is wasting your precious gas?! What would you even do if you ran out of gas when you had Laura with you? You don't have a cell phone to call anyone! Are you just going to carry her with you down the side of the road until you get to somewhere with a phone? And what about the cat you have in the car with you? Eh? What would you do with her?! Such torturous thoughts plagued me for a good half hour...

     And then The Light came on. And in our new van, it is even accompanied by a bottom-dropping-out-of-my-stomach ding. Awesome.

    OMG Where is the nearest gas station?! I need gas RIGHT NOW!! Most-well-known-to-be-ridiculously-overpriced gas station between my sister's and home? Sounds good to me!

     And for the remaining few kilometres to the station, I proceeded to drive with my hand in front of me covering my view of The Light because that's how much it stresses me out. Yep. 

     $85 later, our tank was full, and my heart had stopped palpitating. :)

RIP Grandpa

James Robert "Bob" Adare
November 23, 1927 - March 8, 2011

     I had planned to write this post yesterday, but was too exhausted from this weekend...
  
     Saturday was my grandfather's memorial service. It was a lovely afternoon (and subsequent weekend) spent with friends and family recounting tales and fond memories shared with him. Hearing people speak of him who knew him in roles other than father and grandfather was certainly interesting and enlightening. He was a well-rounded man, and people remember him admiringly: a good father, husband, provider, employee, employer, father-in-law, grandfather, neighbour, friend, the list goes on. 
        
     There was an "open mic" for people to come and share their memories, which I didn't feel overly comfortable doing in front of a big crowd, but in my safe little corner of the internet, I put forward a small tribute: 
   
     I will remember him as a loving, welcoming, host who loved to share a drink. An interesting and intelligent conversationalist. Never quick to upset. Generous. Enjoyed a challenge. Patient teacher. 
     And although he will always be missed, I have come to terms with his passing. He led a rich and full life filled with many blessings, and shared his love and joy with many people. In my eyes, he had a life as good as it gets. I think that's something to celebrate.

Rest in peace, Grandpa. Thanks for everything.

xoxo
     

Ending the Madness

     Being a first-time mom and not knowing a whole lot about caring for a baby, I decided when Laura was born to follow a baby-led schedule. Basically, we let her tell us when she needs something instead of imposing a one-size-fits-all routine on her (re: sleeping, eating, etc). For the most part, it has worked out for us. We have, however, had a few times when we've needed to intervene and make some new rules for the good of the whole family.
     Like this week.
     For the past 3 months or so, Laura has gone back to waking up four times a night. Yes, my 13-month-old baby wakes up as much as a newborn. So, I dutifully drag myself out of bed every two hours and go and nurse her back to sleep, a process that usually only takes about five minutes, but is exhausting to repeat night after night nonetheless. Laura has never once slept through the night. I am permatired. But, the straw that broke the camel's my back was when she started "faux-nursing to sleep" last week. By this, I mean she would wake up her usual four times, but instead of nursing back to sleep in a matter of minutes, she would pretend to go back down without a fuss, and then shortly after I had hit my pillow and drifted off again she would wake back up and start all over. So really, she was waking me up about eight times a night. I couldn't handle that. I was turning into a very grumpy and generally unpleasant person. That's not fun for anyone.


     Why don't you just let her cry, you ask? Well, for one thing, that's generally not something I like to do. If a baby is crying it's because they are in need of something. They have no other form of communication. Whether the need be food, warmth, or just a soothing mommy snuggle, they are trying to let you know that something isn't right with them. That's why women have instincts to help a crying baby, and also why babies' crying is such a terrible sound. (I cannot stand the sound of babies crying, especially my own.) Also, I have read studies that have found that leaving a baby to cry for prolonged periods of time increases the amount of stress hormone, cortisol, in their systems, which can have long-lasting negative effects on personality, trust, and bonding. I also have the Mommy Guilt about denying her food (/ breastmilk) when she wants it because she is so small. On top of all that, our exchange student's room is right next to hers, and I didn't want her (or Josh) to have to listen to Laura crying, for what would probably seem like ever, in the middle of the night, when they had to get up and go to school/ work in the morning.
     But we needed to do something. As much as I hated the idea of leaving her to cry, I hated being an irritable and enraged psychopathic zombie even more. No one wants a mommy like that. Or a wife. Or a host mother. Or a Facebook friend. ;)
     After mulling it over with the Maitlands senior (who have the four child experience advantage), we came up with an arsenal of suggestions we thought were worth trying. 
First it included buying Marisa some earplugs. 


Our first night went something like this:
8:30 bedtime, nursed to sleep
12:00 Laura woke up, Josh (without breasts) went in to soothe her. We waited out 7 minutes of crying, then I went in to soothe her (without nursing). It was going to be Josh's turn 10 minutes after that, but he never ended up needing to go in - she put herself back to sleep.
3:00 Laura wakes up again, I go in and feed her as usual, but instead of just 'nibbling', she took a good full feed. 
6:00 Laura wakes up again, I go in and feed her again. 
8:00 Laura wakes up for the day


Well, that wasn't so painful.


Second night:
8:30 bedtime, nursed to sleep
1:00 Laura wakes up, Josh goes in to soothe her, and she goes back to sleep almost right away. I barely wake up/ remember (woot!)
5:00 Laura wakes up again, I go in and she has a full feeding.
8:00 Laura wakes up for the day


hmmm, I could get used to this.


The third night was a bit of a fluke because she didn't have a good nap during the day and fell asleep while we were out shopping after dinner and I didn't want to wake her when we got home. So, it went something like this:
7:00 Laura fell asleep in the car (and was transferred to her bed as unobtrusively as possible when we got home)
12:00 Laura woke up, I went in and changed her and nursed her (since neither of those usual things happened before bedtime)
5:00 Laura woke up and had a full feeding
8:00 Laura woke up for the day


     So, in three days, we have gone from four night wakings to two. I am pleased with our progress. Hopefully we will be able to wean her down to one (or zero!) in the next little while. 
I also hope that getting better sleep at night will make me less irritable and enraged all the time. I really hate feeling this way and out of control of my emotions. Time to end the madness!