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March 25, 2004
March 22, 2004
Brandan 5 ˝, Kaillan 2 2/3, Emersan 8 months
She slept all night! Slept all night! Slept all night!
9:30-5:30. When the alarm went off, Remo stuck his nose nearly up mine and insisted in a whisper, we didn't get up once with Emmie. I still feel like it's impossible. Maybe we were so tired we don't remember? Imagine if it's forever?
Last night we made Emersan scream bloody murder so she could fall asleep on her own. I went to her several times, breaking every cardinal rule. Caressed her, cuddled her, shhhh, don't tell anyone, I picked her up a few times even. She stands up in the crib now and I wish very much we'd have done this prior to her being upright. Because she's still pretty wobbly, I have this fear she'll be so angry she'll fling herself backwards (remember I have a tantrumy terrible twoer) and break her neck. At least that's how I justified myself seven times.
So my nights are nearly perfect? My evenings are practically unexplainable.
Thursday was Brandan's kindergarten teacher's birthday. Have I mentioned lately that I adore the woman? To make her special day special, I called all the other parents in the class so the kids could send or make a card or something. Brandan sat at the kitchen table for it must have been an hour making a picture for her. A beautiful masterpiece of colour and ideas. We'd also picked her up a little schoolhouse timer with a magnet she could stick on the wall in the classroom. Small enough to not be embarrassing, but useful.
The day before, I sent Remo to Party Mania, a store I frequent quite often. Where else can you buy toilet paper with Ho Ho Ho on it or candles shaped like dump trucks? I was making cupcakes for the kids in the class. I had St. Patrick's muffin cups and I'm matchie-poo, so I asked Remo if he could pass by my store and pick up some shamrock candies to put on top. Later that morning he called me from there to say they only had one package of nine shamrocks left. I directed him to the aisle where they sell the rest of the muffin cups and sprinkles, asking him to find something else that would go. Remo's a busy guy who runs a company and I had him standing there in the middle of the day describing sprinkles to me. We decided the Disney package would be best because the Mickey Mouses were the right colour green. When Remo got to the cash he discovered the things were $15 with tax. For cupcake sprinkles? Were they crazy? He left the store pretty sure he could find them cheaper at the grocery store. But after four attempts, nothing. Did he call me?
Nope.
When I was leaving work, I checked in with Remo to see who he was picking up. One of us gets Brandan, the other gets the girls. I reminded him it was a busy night because we had to make the cupcakes, we had Brandan's magic letter homework to do, no sheets on the beds, I was supposed to go jogging, I really wanted to go to a bullying information session at 7:30 and Remo had hockey at 9. Oh yah, Remo mentioned he didn't get the sprinkles. He found they were too expensive so he got something else that would be perfect. He had found green icing in a tube (and he sang it like he'd just invented it), we could just draw shamrocks on all the cupcakes. Imagine the ease in drawing eighteen equal shamrocks with thick globby tube icing? Half an hour later I was at Party Mania buying sprinkles.
I picked up Brandan at school. Have I mentioned before I'm nothing but Irish and I take all holidays seriously? It was St. Patrick's day and I had on my shamrock earings and pin and a stunning emerald one inch by two (you mean it's not real?) ring. Walking through the hallway amongst the sea of green tops was uplifting. Except for that one little boy with the blue vest who belonged to me. I asked Brandan what happened to the green shirt I had put out for him that morning. With a grimace he said it had Pooh on it, a baby shirt. When the teachers specifically asked for green, is better to look like a colour blind or neglected child?
I forget what it was exactly, but we walked in the house to some catastrophe and then I started supper. Kaillan and Brandan fought tooth and toes over who held the mixer longer and they dragged chairs back and forth in a battle of bothering. The recipe said we would have 24 cupcakes but I could only squeeze 18. There were 18 kids AND Kaillan. I told her if she didn't finish all her supper she wasn't getting one. Please don't make tonight the first night you finish your supper. The phone rang and while I was busy on that, Kaillan opened up the gift and card Brandan had carefully wrapped for Mme Poirier. He flipped. She stared him down. I was very firm with her and she stared me down. STARED ME DOWN, under his breath Remo said she won. Kaillan never blinked and certainly would not acknowledge wrong-doing. Funny how when she's not entirely guilty she'll burst into tears and run screaming to whoever will give her most compassion. When she's wrong, she'll send YOU screaming.
I missed jogging and the bullying session though I will try to intimidate someone into sharing the gist of it. Seriously though, bullying happens even in kindergarten, apparently some of Brandan's friends are getting picked on at recess by the grade three girls. I'm not really sure of the best way to handle it. We had always told Brandan to tell a grownup right away if someone threatens him. But last summer in a game of street hockey when Gracie tripped him, Brandan tore over to tell her mother. The kids were mad at him for tattle tailing and ignored him the rest of the day. When should a responsible adult step in and how about if that action only exasperates the situation?
I can barely type, my hands are so dishpan. Have you been keeping a running tab on my appliance woes? The latest victim? The dishwasher. The kids were loading their stuff in when a fight ensued and the bottom drawer was flung back into the machine. Apparently the force of said action shook the heating element off it's hinges and placed it on the bottom frame of the still considered new and innovative, stainless steel, silent dishwasher resulting in a hole, resulting in a river that ran through our kitchen. Jamal, the appliance fixing GOD, said if epoxy and then 100% silicone doesn't work then we'll have to buy a new dishwasher. I felt awful. He said, it wouldn't be a total write-off because we would keep the old one for parts. He said it so matter of factly, knowing we were people who would NEED spare parts one day. The second last demise happened last week when the eject button fell into the VCR, lodging in such a way we couldn't stick something in to manually eject the video Blockbuster wanted back. What then? Give them back the video with a VCR connected to it?
We celebrated Mme Poirier's birthday with exuberance. That night Karen called to reconfirm her appointment with Remo over the kid's registered education savings plan contributions. That poor, poor woman has called every Thursday for I don't know how long about their appointment Friday. Something always came up, every single week for months and I'm not exaggerating, Remo had to cancel the appointment. Towards the end, I started to wonder if she thought we were playing with her. I swear, I felt the phone ring before it rang and I asked him what his day was going to be like. His grimace was not good. Remo was going to be at a construction site for part of the day and it wasn't too far from her so I tried to get him to meet her there or somewhere nearby. She suggested a café. He didn't want to get stuck to a time. While I was flapping every limb I own to get him to commit to something, Brandan smashed his toe on the stool (I swear I saw sparks) and screamed and cried and hopped on my head. Emmie was crying because she wanted up and Kaillan was hollering from the bathroom she'd just locked herself in, that she needed her bum wiped. She takes priority because nothing is worse than her doing it herself. Remo wasn't answering me and poor Karen was still hanging. I apologised, saying life here is a zoo. She said at two? Sure she could meet at two. I started to laugh, no, I said it's a zoo. Here. Cutting out ten minutes of back and forth and hijinks, we firmed them up a meeting at 11:00 and then she said wait a minute, who should she look for? I described Remo and asked what she looked like. When she said she had a fake fur coat. It wasn't funny but I started to laugh. She sorta laughed along me but said it's a NICE fur coat and then I lost it. Laughed my guts out. For nothing deeper than the words fake fur.
For your visual pleasure, let me say that while this was all going on, I was wearing a grey sweatsuit. The kind that has elastics at the end of every limb and an ingredient list that is most definitely flammable. The kind you don't want to get caught dead in. I was going jogging in it, Remo had to ask. On our street? In front of our neighbours? It would be dark before I could swing it, nobody would see me. Ding Dong. The neighbour came over to drop something off. Emmie wasn't big enough to cover me. The house was in a state. Remo and I unanimously agreed we'd have to do a quick pick-up because you never know when someone would stop by. Ding Dong. I had left Remo's U2 DVD in the friend of a friend's car and he picked now to drop it off. They're an adorable couple, it's too soon yet to let them see the real us. I hipped and hopped and leaped out of viewing. Just when we were considering how much he saw, DING DONG AGAIN. Annabelle came to drop something off and happened to have a new van Remo was going to check out. For the record, the whole while the door bell was ringing off the hook, we had grilled vegetables and twenty five dollars of chicken burning on the barbeque. It was by this point 6:45 and none of the kids had eaten. We had four hundred and fifty thousand things to do and Remo asked Annabelle if she wanted to come in. I held my breath. She had too many errands to run. Before I could actually ingest any air, Remo suggested she leave both kids and GO! My eyes bore into the back of his head. When she said yes, I had to sing, literally sing, something about us having four hundred and fifty thousand things to do. He really does live in the moment.
Three days later...
Way back in 1997, I visited a dermatologist for whatever reason. I'm blondish with help here and there and I have very pale skin and eyes, I tanned like a MANIAC in my youth and I've got a lot of those BEAUTY marks, them there professionals refer to as moles. They suggested I remove one of them and I forget why I didn't do it at that particular moment, but life moved on. When I became a mother and held my teenie tiny son, it hit me profoundly that I had a responsibility to take care of myself better than ever, so I would be around to take care of him forever and ever. That crazy hormonal heat rash I landed right after he was born didn't hurt either. I was labelled a type B (second worst I think) skin cancer magnet and I swore off basking in the sun. Another monumental moment round about that time was a woman I saw on the metro. Though she carried her deep moka tan so proudly, imagine how many hours it took to earn it, what I saw was leathered, weathered skin. Yuck.
A painful sacrifice for a self confessed tan addict? Not really. I used fake tan creams when I want that healthy glow and how convenient, I kept having babies and being bed-rested all summers long. Just recently, with summer approaching, we started looking into going Maine or Cape Cod for a vacation, talked of maybe going to the Caribbean next fall. You only live once, right? Was I keeping my children from pocketing memories of jumping ocean waves and building sand castles THIS high? Why not slap on a good SPF and live? I had a dermatologist appointment yesterday. I went so she could have a look-see at that problem mole and was ugh, taken aback when she asked me to strip down to my underwear. Socks off, even.
Dr. O'Brien, LOVE her, said I have a lot of abnormal moles. The flat ones are more concerning than the raised ones, the ones that cropped up on places like the palm of my hand, were note worthy. But I did have one on my shoulder that had changed in colour and size and had to be sent for a biopsy now. When we sat in her office and talked wrinkles and pregnancy mask (which may never go away), she told me she would call me within three weeks with the results of the biopsy. She said because of the kind of moles I have, it is very important that my siblings go to a dermatologist and regardless of the results, I should see her every six months. Even though it takes six months to get an appointment, she said if I notice a change in a mole I should call immediately and tell the receptionist it was an emergency. I walked out of there more concerned with getting back to the office. Only later that night, when I asked Remo to put polysporin on my war wound, when he said with an e'gad voice that there was a hole, did I consider, what if it was bad? I mean nearly every part of me knows already it isn't, but what if it is? It was in thinking back over our conversation that I started to wish I could just know now. I guess I'll know by Easter and anyway, it is what it is...and is NOT.
We've got a real problem in our home right now with Emmie the vacuum. We're not dirty people, sloppy sometimes, but not dirty. Even when the floors are just mopped, Emmie's radar will pick up on something and the rest of her will snap over like a slingshot to grab it. Aside from the cereals and dropped vegetables of the day, she has had four near catastrophes; a little blue elastic she threw up violently on, a piece of the paper that wraps a garlic clove, a piece of foam from Brandan's stinking glove (by far the grossest) and the one I had to hang her over the toilet while performing the Heimlich manoeuver over, a foilish piece of a yogurt top. We tell the kids over and over they have to be careful, I think Kaillan derives pure joy in yanking everything out of the baby's mouth. I find myself, for piece of mind, carrying her on my hip when I'm doing something distracting. And speaking of carrying her, it's all the child wants anyway. Hmmmm. Maybe she's blocking her windpipe on purpose! I am her absolute favourite person. She balls her eyes out if ever I walk away and she chases me as fast as her hands and knees will take her. I know I have to be careful because a mom-suck ends up draining everyone, but man, when just walking into a room will make her eyes glow, her smile sparkle and my heart sing, I'll cut my losses.
Feed me a good, dark, glorious chocolate and you could sign me up for jury duty. I have many weaknesses, with chocolate being way up there. What I can't explain is my new fixation with Coffee Crisp chocolate bars. I've never had a cup of coffee in my life, never even had an inkling to knock one back and yet, I'm having a Coffee Crisp a day, sometimes even way more than one. Is that what coffee tastes like? Should I just bite the bullet? Eat them till I can't stand them anymore?
Shelley posted a great recipe for banana crunch muffins on the board, I tried it last night and can fully endorse it. Remo ate four in a row.
With everyone everywhere talking of finding their passions, I've been feeling very much like I need one of my own. Though I must say it would be a lot easier if I didn't have a full time job, I decided to dabble in this and that till something sets me on fire. People who know me best have said I should start an event organizing company. I can unabashedly say I would be good at it, but nope, that's not it. At least not today. I considered very seriously taking up a sport. Soccer. I called to join the league here and found there were two groups; the under 35 year olds with the majority of this group being 19 and 20 and the over 35s that I'm not old enough for. Problem is the group is very competitive and while I have no problem with that, I've never actually played the game before and would prefer not to have the $%& kicked out of me my first time round. I spoke to a bunch of women and got twenty of them hyped up enough to agree to play some pick-up soccer through the summer. Perfect. I can play hard and have fun. If I'm any good, maybe next year I'll teach them 19 year olds how to play. The husbands, eavesdropping on us wives talking about the plan, swore we don't have it in us. Ha! Close your eyes big boys, you don't want to get dust in them...
The wife of Brandan's hockey coach told me about a marathon she's planning on running Mother's Day. It's a five kilometre run, I marked the distance in a drive and it's not unreasonable. To train for it, she starts off walking five minutes then running one, repeating it four more times, every other day for a week. The following week she walks four, runs two and so on, till eventually she's running twenty-five minutes straight. I have the energy and drive to do it, but I don't want to become a jogger for life. I like the workout, I like the challenge in pushing yourself and that there's a lot of flexibility in when you do it. When I got home after day one, I felt far from energized. I'd jogged a little longer than the regimen called for, and man, were my muscles quivering, but I really got off on the cardiovascular part of it. I'm prone to shin splints and not interested in destroying my joints, so I think I'll do this marathon, not to break records, but to kick off a healthier life style. From then on in, I'll do power walking. Brandan could bike along with me, Emmie will be happy in the stroller. Kaillan? What would I do with her? Sell her to the neighbour.
Over the weekend, we tried a new venture out. Brandan slept over at Remo's parents, it was the first time he ever slept away from us. We actually spoke to him more while he was there than we would had he been home. He's in that dial-a-phone-number-all-by-yourself phase. If our maestro holds 50 numbers, he used everyone one of them up. What was nice about the night was Kaillan got us all to herself and she marvelled in it. She made for delightful company, an adorable, cuddly imp. The next morning, we met Brandan and Nonno at the hockey game where Kaillan finagled her way back to Nonno's for pasta. Brandan, Emmie, Remo and I continued on with our original plan, to the mall for lunch and errands. It was amazing how calm it was, how much more we accomplished. Brandan chatted out ears off, Emmie didn't fuss. We ate in peace. I have to say individual time is imperative in the dynamics of the family. Everyone wins. We picked up Kaillan a couple hours later (felt like a day) and once again, life was a delectable zoo Did I say zoo or two? It still makes me laugh. Fake Fur.
Would you look at that, the weekend is around the corner. I'm hoping for a warm, fuzzy weekend at the homestead. I want to make a thick, hearty, chicken soup and a cream of asparagus one. Brownies. Homemade pizza with spinach and tomatoes and roasted red peppers, though wait a minute, I found a bakery that makes a knock-out one, so why bust my butt? I have a couple pork roasts I may play around with. We pinkie-finger swore we would videotape and photograph our children this weekend, poor Emmie only has what my grandmother took at Christmas. Slackers. Remo's parents traded in the camera for an accordion when he came along because a) he was another boy and b) he looked like the other two anyway. I want to get one of those Babiesonline web pages going again, I think our last one is gone. Funny, when they said it would expire if I didn't update it, I never believed they meant it.
Can't think of what I'm leaving out. For all you soap opera partisans out there, Danielle and I resolved the fracas that held us apart and it feels great. So my moto of the day or week or life is, don't waste time on nonsense. And MORE IMPORTANTLY, don't type when you're mad.
With that, may I bid adieu and be back before long,
Allisun
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