Ear Infection

Rachel has been so sick for the past two nights with a good fever going. We finally took her to emerge and the (new) doctor said it looked like she had an ear infection. He was not especially convincing in his diagnosis, but prescribed antibiotics for her, and her fever didn't break until we gave them to her. Poor thing. He also said he wanted her to stay at the hospital until he was sure she was taking in enough fluids (after I had told him she had been doing nothing but taking fluids.) He later retracted that clause and said we could go even though she had not drank anything the nurses brought for her. She was so tired, but did so well. Her poor little body seems so drastically responsive to environmental cues, always with the really flushed cheeks when she is hot, etc. I hope she feels better soon, it breaks my heart to see her like that.

Leaps & Bounds

    Laura is currently going through a growth spurt of independence. She has learned how to fully dress and undress herself, and has been rampantly practicing taking her clothes on and off, jammies to clothes, clothes to naked, naked to jammies, all day long! I am pretty excited she has finally grown some independence in this area, and although the incessant wardrobe changes are a little exasperating, I know she is just practicing her new skill that will leave me with a little less to do for her. So I'm pretty happy about it!

     She has also started showing a real interest in letters and their sounds and more specifically what happens when you put the sounds together! We have started some rudimentary phonics, and she has the skills now of an early reader! This, too, has me ecstatic!! I am sooo excited to introduce her to the world of reading!

     In a not-so-great leap of independence, Laura has come to let herself out of the house as she pleases.  She has been able to open doors for a long time now (obviously), but only recently has she started taking off without telling me she is leaving. I have to have a pretty keen ear for the door opening and closing now! (And we have talked several times about the importance of telling mommy when she wants to go outside and play before she does it!)

And! Not to be left in the dust, Rachel has started making preliminary progress on the potty training front! We have had some success with her peeing on the potty, and that has me doing a happy dance, as well!

One of Those Days...

This morning started off... not well. I got up early and had looked forward to some 'me time' before the kids awoke. But, about ten minutes after I settled myself down on the couch, I heard a small, but growing voice, calling, "Mommy? MOOMMMMMY!!" So I raced back upstairs to let Rachel out of her room before she woke up her sister. Of course she demanded food immediately and the whole idea of  'me time' fell through my fingers. After shovelling a large bowl of oatmeal and berries into the toddler's mouth, I checked facebook while she watched Bubble Guppies on repeat until Laura woke up at 8:30. (Why can't they just sleep the same hours?!) After Laura ate her oatmeal it was time to get ready for the day. Laura's hair was especially tangled this morning, which resulted in more screaming on both parts than usual. I was copping a lot of attitude, and, well, so was she. Even though Laura's piano lessons don't start until 10:00, we were still somehow late - a big stress point for me. Immediately after her piano lesson, we had a playdate at the park. The girls played pretty nicely while we were there and I was able to get in some adult conversation, which was much appreciated. But then Rachel got tired. And when Rachel gets tired, she gets mean. She started throwing sand, even after being warned about the dangers - a clear indication she wanted to go home. Why she can't just tell me she wants to go, I don't know. So we left.
When we got home, I started making lunch. The girls started fighting over a stuffed animal (one we have two of, no less), and Rachel ended up pinching Laura so hard she has a large, very sore looking welt that she ended up crying/ whining about for a good 20 minutes. After consoling Laura, they both went to their rooms for a time out - just what Rachel wanted. I made her a bottle, and when I came up to give it to her, she was already nearly asleep. (I'm looking forward to the day when she realizes she can just put herself in her room/ bed when she is tired instead of inflicting wounds on her sister.) Laura came down and had some food with me and we read a book/ practiced sounding out words. Then she had some quiet time watching a movie while I chatted with a friend. When her movie was over, she asked to go outside. I obliged and that was when our day took a much needed turn for the better.

We practiced sounding out a few more words I wrote on the wall with chalk, and she is starting to get the hang of it, which is fun and really boosting her confidence. We also have had this foam bat and ball for a couple years now, but Laura has not been coordinated enough to get the hang of swinging/ hitting the ball... until today. We had a lot of misses (which were apparently the result of my bad throwing), but she got a lot of hits, too, which was really exciting for her (and me!). So I began teaching her the rules of baseball. We set up a first base, so that when she hit the ball, she had somewhere to run. I would retrieve the ball and try to tag her 'out' before she got there. She loved this part. It was a little hard to teach her any more than that about how the game worked since we didn't have any more players, but she really enjoyed just practicing hitting and running to first. The tension we'd had between us all day began melting away. Funny how being outside has a way of facilitating that. It makes me even keener to move out of town and be surrounded with nature full time, especially since we'll be outgrowing our little yard here in the next couple of years. <3

Disney World!!

We got home from our amazing trip to Disney World for Rachel's birthday tonight. It was so gloriously warm there and not a drop of rain all week! We had a fabulous time.

    On Sunday after Rachel's party, our flight wasn't until the evening, so we spent the day just cleaning up a bit and doing the final pack of our suitcases. I wanted Rachel to get a good nap in since our flight was late and I knew she would be tired the next day. We left around 3:15 for the airport, and Laura ended up napping on the way, to my surprise. We made good time and experienced no issues. Got to the gate at dinner time and were able to order food on the free iPads. Pretty cool. Rachel was very excited to see all the planes, and Laura especially enjoyed the moving sidewalks. So we spent our time doing a lot of laps around the walking sidewalk and watching the planes land and take off. The girls were very excited to be on the plane and did well for take off and the flight. The flight got in to Orlando just after 11pm and both girls were still awake. Rachel had a bit of a meltdown on the way down because she was over tired and had to sit with her seatbelt on and couldn't see out the window. They fell asleep on the bus over to our resort, but Rachel is a light sleeper, so woke again when we got there and had trouble getting to sleep one we were finally settled in our room. Pretty rough night for our little bee.

     Monday morning they were both awake at 7:15 regardless, so all the adults dragged ourselves out of bed and got ready for the day. We got off to a pretty slow start and ended up just missing the bus to Magic Kingdom, so had to wait another 20 minutes or so. We had fastpasses that we needed to use before 11am, and ended up just barely squeaking in before they expired. We raced to the back of the park to meet Ariel in her mermaid form and were able to avoid a 50 minute line-up with our fastpasses. After that we did the new 'Journey Under the Sea' ride, which was pretty cool. After that we had fastpasses for lunch at the new 'Be Our Guest' restaurant, which is inside the Beast's castle. This was the thing I was most excited to see this trip, so I was ecstatic when I was able to score fastpasses for it and we wouldn't have to wait in line. The castle was beautiful, and I'd really like to go back there for dinner sometime. We went to meet Gaston, and then to 'Enchanted Tales with Belle', where the children put on a play for Belle, and Laura got to be Chip. Pretty cute. We went on the carrousel after that on our way to meet Rapunzel. Rachel had an especially epic meltdown when our turn on the carrousel was over because she was so tired. She was wary of meeting the characters in her overtired state, but accepted hugs from them in the safety of my arms. ;) We took a break to sit in the shade and watch the new 'Festival of Fantasy' parade from afar. After that we had fastpasses to meet Anna and Elsa, which were in very high demand - the wait to meet them in standby was 3 hours! After that we had dinner at Cinderella's Royal Table and met a few more princesses. At this point Rachel was just happy to be eating, so she wasn't as into all the photo ops. We had one more princess to meet after dinner: Tiana from the 'The Princess and the Frog', because Laura was wearing that dress that day. She fell asleep while we waited. Poor tired monkey. I was pleasantly shocked by how well she did for the whole trip. It was not much after 6pm when we headed back to the resort for some much needed sleep for the evening. The grandparents spelled off with us so we could take a quick dip in the pool while the kids were going to sleep. So glad they could come with us and help out like that.

Tuesday we got off to a little better start, though still a little later than I had planned for.

A lot of planning and anticipation went into this trip and it really paid off. I want to go back already.

A Very Mickey Birthday

     Rachel's birthday theme this year was, as usual, decided well in advance, due to our plans to go to Disney World for her actual birthday. I thought it would be fun to ramp up excitement by doing a Minnie/ Mickey party before we left. (When we did Laura's party after we got back from Disney for her second birthday it was really anticlimactic and lame. Live and learn.) It was a little more stressful to do the party beforehand, but nice to get it out of the way, at the same time. :)

Invites
(the insert read: Yoo Hoo!
Guess who's two!
Calling all mouseketeers!
Party at Rachel's Clubhouse!)

Trivia about Mickey and Minnie was hung on Mickey silhouettes around the room.
The living room decorations loosely resembled a circus tent.

So we loosely went with circus food for lunch: hot dogs & popcorn.
I had to make several concessions due to lack of time/ resources,
but still turned out all right.

place settings (cutlery wrapped inside the bow)

For example, I had intended the cookie pops be standing up,
but they refused to cooperate with my box.
I had also intended to make "Minnie's Bows" our of watermelon, but ran out of time.

Uncooperative, but delicious and cute Mickey cookie pops

I had intended for there to be yellow balloons, too,
but didn't realize I didn't have any until the day of.
The kids didn't seem to mind. ;)

The kids just played in the playroom mostly.
Two year olds aren't really into birthday games,
so I didn't bother planning any.

presents

Cake was a concession, too, and did not turn out at all like I had planned. Sorry Rache.

Rachel tried several times to blow out the sparkler candle, resulting in a big, adorable pout.

Since Rachel really loves colouring, I decided these would make good favours

His and Hers Minnie/ Mickey colouring books + crayon rolls I made

Minnie-style crayon rolls

     Overall, I didn't feel like the party was quite up to my usual standards, but went pretty well. Hopefully the trip to Disney World tomorrow makes up for what the party lacked. ;)

Thanks to everyone who came out! And happy pre-birthday, Baby Girl!

The Empty Frame

    I have had these three frames for almost 7 years, always with the intention of filling them each with a collage of photos of the three babies I had always dreamed about. Laura's and Rachel's are happily filled in with photos from their respective first years, and are displayed proudly in our living room... but the last one remains empty.

    The past few days I have been really struggling with the whole surrogacy issue. My dream of having three children refuses to be extinguished, and comes rushing back to the forefront when news like the new liberal budget includes funding a round of IVF for all infertile couples is revealed. I had even had a realistic offer from someone to carry for us, so of course I couldn't help but get my hopes up.
   Turns out that surrogate won't work out for us, and even more painful, Josh is not sure about the whole idea still. It is becoming a sore spot for us. I feel unsupported in achieving my dreams, and he feels overwhelmed. It's hard to find a compromise or middle ground.

Rant: Where is the Compassion?

A two-part rant tonight, stemming from a common theme:

The first is regarding a series of comments on an article about giving birth/ postpartum. One of the comments grabbed my attention:

Take the drugs! Have a c-section! Just kidding...I had no choice in either of these things...remember it's not the birth...it's the end result, a healthy baby.

And while everyone loves a healthy baby, I had to argue that a healthy baby is not the only important outcome of birth. Normally I never engage in 'comment wars' on facebook, but I was in a bad mood and particularly irritated by this comment, so I replied.

Actually, the birth matters a lot. It is a very momentous and formative experience for the mother, especially. If your birth doesn't go the way you had planned/ hoped, allow yourself your feelings.

This is an especially touchy subject for me because of my history of unwanted C-sections and where that led me. I presume it was a touchy subject for this woman, as well, since her response was:

 I disagree...Nothing goes as planned...for the rest of your life! Except it and get over it that's my 2 cents. I did all my grieving the 4 years it took us to get pregnant and had a very complicated pregnancy (understatement) and a premature baby after my month long stay at RVH...trust me...at the end of the day all that really matters is your healty baby and not how he/she got here, but that THEY ARE HERE, PERIOD...not everyone is even this lucky. 

 I'm sorry you had such a hard experience, but I do not believe telling people what they are and are not allowed to feel is acceptable.
Many women's postpartum depression stems from a negative birth experience and because the majority of society tells them to 'suck it up, your baby arrived safely', essentially, it worsens the issue. Swallowing your feelings has never helped anyone.
Of course people should celebrate the fact that their baby arrived safely, I am not disputing that, and I am not saying you should dwell on your negative birth experience either. But acknowledging that you are upset about it and having people accept that goes a long way towards a mentally healthy mother.

After this, I was accused of giving unsolicited advice.
In no way was this advice, I was merely trying to speak up and advocate for mothers' postpartum mental health. My doctor said the same thing to me after my C-sections: "Well, the end goal is a healthy baby." And while I'm sure many people who say this are trying to help you feel better/ see the positive, I really felt invalidated by this comment. It is completely possible to still be elated about your child arriving safely, while simultaneously feeling disappointed and cheated out of the birth experience you had hoped for. It wasn't until I went to a few therapy sessions, and the therapist 'allowed' me to express this, and told me it was completely acceptable to feel this way, that I felt a huge sense of relief wash over me. Had I had this kind of support and acceptance in the first place, I wouldn't have had to try to hide or make light of my true feelings about it for so long. And really, this can be extrapolated to other mental health issues. Why do people feel the need, or the right, to tell people how they can and cannot feel? Just accept and support.
I really hope this woman who was debating with me had good intentions, but I gather from her story that she maybe has lingering issues she is suppressing regarding her own birth experience. Either way, it is not a competition. Yes, some people's birth experiences are worse than others. That does not mean that others are not entitled to their own feelings around their birth. If you truly are happy with your birth experience, c-section or otherwise, then that is great! And if you aren't, that is fine, too. Just remember a little compassion goes a long way, and allow people to work through their feelings.

 Part Two:

I also came across this on my facebook feed the same day:

To which, I say:

(excuse random apostrophe. I didn't write this.)

I also came across a video on facebook of an overweight man participating in an poolside aerobics class, where the clear purpose of the video was to laugh at the man. I have seen memes of obese women where the sole purpose is make fun of their appearance.
I'm not really sure why these irk me so much as I don't have a trigger (the way I do in part one), but it makes me furious when people post pictures/ videos/ memes of other people solely for the purpose of making fun or bringing people down. Furious.
Why are people so judgmental? I admit that the tattooed lad is a bit extreme, and is certainly not my taste, but what if he was exceptionally qualified for the job and was dismissed because of the way he looks? The shallowness of it all disgusts me. And why do people post videos and pictures of overweight people to only make fun of them? Seriously. 

I hope to raise my girls with compassion and depth to perceive people based on their qualities rather than their appearance. 

End rant.