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December 17, 2003
Obviously you can imagine the pain involved in trying to catch up on all this time. It goes soooo fast, we did soooo much.
I just got my computer back. Kathy and Steve, my Windows software was corrupted though ironically enough, I haven’t had a chance to reinstall it. I slithered by all summer with enormous, headache-causing display settings. I feel horrible for barely passing by the iparenting site but it’s not because I’m lazy or ill mannered, my life is just unbelievably full. If you had a dollar for the “always something” elses that keep popping up, you’d be on vacation right now.
I’ve got the Barefoot Contessa on as I type, who was it, Rebecca who posted about her before? We’ve only been hanging out for five minutes now but I know already, I love love love her. She’s making a turkey meatloaf and parmesan mashed potatoes with the skins still on. Does anyone know when her show comes on? I won a satellite dish this summer and I can’t imagine life without satellite. Getting to see some of the early shows I would no doubt miss later on at night? Pinch me it’s for real.
I think I more or less last left off around Emersan’s christening. Could you bare with me while I share the itty bitty details? For Emmie’s sake, so she can read about it one day?
Of all the events and parties I’ve ever thrown, Emmie’s baptism was my favorite yet. Claudia and Karim are her Godparents and they’re in a word, awesome. October 19th was a sunny but chilly day. There were eleven babies being christened by Father Donnelly, I forget the gender distribution, maybe because our baby complaining distracted me through most of the ceremony. Emmie’s dress was long, ivory silk with a creamish/goldish sash and an embroidered overlay in front. It matched her invitations actually. I had a gold coloured pant suit with matching silk shoes and I loved the set so much I went back and bought the whole thing in black. The shoes too, though they were high enough I had to concentrate extremely hard to walk in them. Thank Gawd the restaurant had carpet or I’d still be recovering from three hundred broken bones. Kaillan had a beautiful gold party dress with matching patent shoes. Brandan wore his suit with a burgundy and gold tie. Both of them understood this was Emmie’s especially important day. Kaillan reminded us for weeks the priest poured water all over Emmie’s head, she didn’t think it was very nice of him.
The ceremony was mass confusion with parents and Godparents, children and picture takers all over the place and I have to say I loved the chaos of it. It made it warm and probably nobody noticed my baby was awfully loud. Father Donnelly mentioned maybe four times we should all go out and have ten more children. I didn’t think it was appropriate to say yah, yah, sure, YOU go have ten more children.
We left the church and went to the reception at a fantastic little Italian restaurant. Thanks to Gina for suggesting it. It was absolutely perfect, they had just redecorated the whole place and how convenient, their colours MATCHED us. The bathrooms were cool even, they had decorated them as wine cellars. We kicked things off with a champagne toast followed by antipasto, then fried calamari and zucchini, then two homemade pastas, then salad followed by rack of lamb, shrimp and veal. The kid’s meals came with chicken shaped like leaves. I made centerpieces with pumpkins and flowers, burgundy grapes and gold ribbons on them. I set up the kids on one side of the restaurant with a massive table decorated Halloweenish, so Martha. I had crafts for them and we brought a soft ice cream maker to make sundaes. I brought a TV, VCR and comforters for the floor so the little kids could watch movies and I’m telling you, the kids had a blast. We gave everybody two silver frames, one with Emmie’s picture and I wrapped the boxes in a beautiful cream and ivory paper and tied with an ivory ribbon. The paper matched the invitations. Each of the kids had a present too, snack art kits for the older kids, endless mini bubble makers for the babies and board games for the kids in between. What was really wonderful was the service we had at the restaurant. They opened just for us (I think we were fifty including the kids) and those guys bent over backwards to make our day perfect. Emersan slept angelically through everything. But for the record, I’m leaving out the bumps in the road; the clothes panic where Claudia and I had NOTHING to wear, my last minute alteration race, the crafts that wouldn’t glue, the gifts that didn’t fit into the bags, running out of tape, the ‘joy’ of buying twenty five perfect pumpkins and the squirrels that tried to make off with them. I’m leaving out the part where a car was stolen with my new purse it and how Claudia and I hauled furniture around the restaurant in the wee hours of the morning. I guess the details will get fuzzy before long, but I’ll never forget how incredibly grateful and honoured and LUCKY I felt for all that we have in these three beautiful children. The party was bonus.
Before you knew, it was Halloween. BOO!!! Brandan was a puffed up muscular Spiderman, Kaillan: She-Frog (I sewed a pink plaid bow on the head of Brandan’s frog suit and put on a double strand of big pink pearls). Emmie was a sleeping flower. Brandan was totally into trick or treating, I had to carry Kaillan and run to keep up with him. She was a riot, by the way. When we were just starting out, one of my neighbors let Kaillan pick out her own candy. BIG mistake. Ever house we hit after, Kaillan scooted around the kids and slipped under foot till she was in their homes calling the shots. When I hauled her out of one house, she hollered blue murder, with limbs flailing, she hadn’t gotten Smarties. While I tried to convince her they didn’t have any, she furiously stomped: yes they did! No they didn’t Kaillan. Yes, they DID. On the TABLE.
It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm night. Our patio furniture has a bar set with chairs and we hauled that to the front so Remo could do a hot chocolate stand. We had whipped cream, marshmallows, cookies even and a couple cheerful guys to serve it up. With so many houses in the hood doing haunted houses and giving out some cool things, we thought hot chocolate for the parents would be a hit. The guys couldn’t find a single customer so they drank it all themselves. Tonight, months after Halloween, we saw a show with police on TV and I asked Brandan if he would like to be a policeman one day. Kaillan said no, he can’t. “He’s going to be Spiderman, I’m going to be a She-Frog”.
Tell me something, do She-Frogs make the world a better place?
Ribbit.
Not long after we finished building our house, when we’d barely even moved in, Remo tried to convince me it would be a smart move financially for us to sell it and build again. My basic platform was over my dead body. Someone would have to knock on our door and offer us a million dollars to move. Well basically that’s what someone nearly did. A couple saw our house, were very interested and sent their agents over to wheel and deal. While we ping-ponged over what we wanted to clear and the most they would pay, Remo and I tried to find a place to go. We number crunched and considered our options and ultimately decided not to go for it. What’s ironic is that I was the one pushing to sell, and Remo more or less talked me out of it.
In maybe my last or second last entry, I told you about the little five year old boy with the inoperable brain tumor. He’s my girlfriend’s neighbor and she has been working tirelessly to raise the three hundred thousand dollars he needs to pay for a treatment in Houston that may or may not save him. So many people have said it’s not even a sure thing that it’ll work, when I heard the mother respond with ‘the only sure thing is he’s going to die’, I knew I had to help in some way. Why her? Why him? I’m not good at asking people for anything, much less money, so while I was in a cooking class, I thought of an idea. I could organize a cooking class for charity! I got the store to donate the food and asked them to find us a bunch of chicken recipes (everyone could use a new way to prepare chicken), they charged us $10 a person for the class, which was actually very fair and then I asked all the girls to donate $10 for the little boy. A few people gave a bit more and we were able to collect $500. Not an incredible amount but still $500 more than they had before. Plus the women that came got a night out. On the side, I also asked everyone coming to give me their very best recipe (like if someone had a gun to your head, what would YOU share), and I put them all together in a little book. I have some GREAT recipes to share with you, starting with a cranberry balsamic pork roast I’ll get up on the board just as soon as I have a chance. For the record, I’m always better at the board when I’ve managed to post an entry. Guilt et al.
Getting tried and TRUE recipes was fantastic, so when I talked to a few of my friends about maybe getting a little recipe ‘club’ together, I was surprised at how enthusiastic they were. None of us has time to waste experimenting and all of us like good food. We’re considering getting something going in the new year, maybe even a potluck dinner of sorts. I like the girl bonding in it. Seeing what’s happened with the little boy with brain cancer and all the people, from all over the place who have come together to actually try and save his life, is humbling. I can see how having a tight network of friends, who would move mountains for you, and you for them, makes you incredibly lucky. And strong. One of my girlfriends even suggested we keep up with the charity part of it, each giving $10 and whosever house we’re at gets to pick where the money goes. What do you guys do in the name of girl bonding?
For any of you who’ve been around for a while, you know I’m a peach/nectarine/plum freak. When it’s that time of year and I get some knock-out ones, I’m deliriously happy. Maybe about a year ago, I noticed when I ate peaches, they were getting stuck in my throat, like I was eating them so enthusiastically, I wasn’t chewing them. Then I thought maybe I had a problem with the fuzz. So what, I kept eating them. Then this summer, I noticed it was happening with nectarines and then plums. A couple months went by and I thought I should maybe go see an allergist because it felt almost like my throat was swelling. A couple days before the appointment, I was cleaning out my freezer when I found a bag of almonds. Me, who’s forever telling people to eat 10 a day because they’re anticancer, thought I should maybe practice what I preach. That throat thing happened again so I mentioned it to the allergist. For the record, I’ve never had a single food allergy in my life but POOF, just like that, I’m allergic to peaches, plums, nectarines, almonds, hazelnuts, apples, celery, carrots, pollen, ragweed and something else. I had really strong reactions, he told me I have to carry an epipen, which crap, I keep forgetting to get. For the first month, I think I was in denial, it’s impossible. I’m giving myself a break from all of it, hoping maybe the stress of my crazy busy life and not sleeping is just havocing my immune system. Oh, yah, the allergist did say the exception with the fruit is if it’s been cooked. I just have to microwave my peach for ten seconds and the enzyme I’m allergic to will be gone. You can imagine the blank stare I gave him. Microwave my peach??? Yuk!!!
So there you have it, Emersan’s almost five months old and she’s still waking up every two hours at night. 11-1-3-5 to be exact. Really, I know I’m her soother and I want to change it, but I have to tell you, she’s incredibly adorable. I’m giving her till six months and then I’m to going to toughen up. I started (ok, today) putting her down for her naps awake and she’s not happy about it, but she’s only crying to complain. She sleeps in a strange position, with her head way on the side and pitched so far back it looks awkward. All of my kids slept strange. Kaillan would sleep on her stomach with her legs curled under and her bum up in the air. Even now, she burrows deep under the blanket and doesn’t even want a light on in the hallway. Brandan, as a baby, would sleep on his back with his arms, legs and fingers all straight out. Like he was making a snow angel or under arrest. To this day, he’s the wildest in bed. Every night when I do a last check on him before bed, I have to lift a limb back up. Anyways, Emmie’s nature is just awesome. She’s a happy baby and I know it sounds so cliché, but I never had one of those before. Tricia, in my mind she’s like Sarah. A little sweetheart who loves to talk. A simple glance her way will send her into a symphony of coos, with giggles from the bottom of her belly. It’s contagious. Half my problem with organizing my life is her. She’ll be swinging in her swing, talking up a storm and I have to drop everything to catch up with her. She must be about 15 and a half pounds now. Imagine, she’s only been to the doctor three times, at her two week, six week and four month checkups, where all was perfect. In Brandan’s days, I think we were hanging out with the doctor every afternoon.
Speaking of the medical profession, am I writing smarter since I graduated from Mini-Med? Claudia and I did a really cool lecture series at McGill University. Every week we studied a new field; Microbiology, Immunology, Pharmacology, Physiology, Anatomy, Neuroscience, Pathology and the Human Genome. I LOVED it. I know it, if I could go back in time and do it all over again, I’d have gone into medicine. Maybe in my next entry I’ll share some of the interesting things I learned. Maybe in my next life I’ll accomplish big things.
Do I always tell you Kaillan’s a riot? She freaks me out because she’s awfully smart. She knows her ABCs and can sing the ending in English or French. She can count to 20 in both languages and no word of a lie, she knows at least twenty songs. She uses words like disgusting and impossible. And she’s very funny in a clever way. Where Brandan’s sense of humor is more slapstick, Kaillan’s is already dry. Kaillan dresses herself, packs her lunch and can organize the toys. She’s 2 and a half and I’m wondering how she compares with other kids her age. Is it just because she’s a girl? Is she within the norm, but just picking up things faster because she follows Brandan? He comes home with songs and she sings them just like that. What are your kids up to? The only pull your hair out part of Kaillan is she does need extra stimulation or she’ll get herself into trouble. You can’t imagine what she can undo or smear in one minute.
Brandan is doing incredibly in school. To be entirely honest, I was really scared for him with it being exclusively French, but he’s already correcting my annunciation. In six more months, there’s no doubt in my mind, he’ll speak better French than I do. The kid also has this amazing social life. With play dates all over the place, a birthday party every other weekend and hockey every Saturday and Sunday, I’m wearing out my agenda. I got really involved with the school, truth be told, I volunteered for everything. My thought in that was that it would give me a good idea of what I’d want to keep up when I’m back at work. I took on too much and I had some weeks there where keeping up with just the meetings was overwhelming. What I liked was getting to know the other moms and their children, and the way the school works. I’ve more or less figured out what I’ll be good at; the school newsletter (because I can do that at lunch when I’m back at work), volunteering in the classroom (because those kids are SO cute). I got onto one project, actually I AM the project, arranging Little Ceaser’s/Subway lunches as a fundraiser for the school, that I’d like to unload. To keep it up I’ll have to take time off from work, and I’d rather spend the time with the kids, as opposed to sorting out 428 lunches. Remo’s going to be assistant coaching Brandan’s hockey team, which at his level, is pretty easy. I wonder now and then how we’ll juggle life when all three of them have to be shuttled around to activities…
Which brings me to the one party that sorta pushed me over the edge. Every Christmas we do a kid’s holiday party. This year, Brandan wanted to invite everybody he’s ever met so I drew a line. Five from soccer, five from his class, five from the family and some friends of ours. It’s flu season and with holiday plans all over the place, not all of them would come, right? Try every single one of them, and a couple extra siblings too. Twenty two children, 5:30-8:30. I have to say the girls were really easy, but the boys, who all look so sweet and calm when they’re one on one, were wired. The kindergarteners were unquestionably, the worst. They came for supper and some crafts and Santa came too. By seven o’clock I thought it must be time to start putting on their coats. Had I kept it all the same age group, I’d have been in better shape but there were seven year olds and four year olds and all the wild ones in between. We were six grownups and we were so far outnumbered. How do you spell wiped out? The next morning I had to bake ten dozen cookies for the Christmas fair at the school Sunday, race to hockey, then run the cookies to the school. We went out that night. Sunday morning we had hockey and then the fair but we had a fluke snow storm. Remo’s company also does snow removal, so guess who dropped me like a hot potato? The same guy who was supposed to be Santa Clause at the fair and was now telling me there was no way he could make it. Imagine a Christmas fair without Santa Clause? I cursed like a sailor. Make that a $%^&*# sailor. Remo made it to the fair an hour before it ended but they already had a replacement. A skinny man with a beard made out of cotton balls and a red flannel shirt with a square pillow in his front. I felt so bad I stayed and mopped the entire gym floor all by myself. With a mop that weighed two hundred pounds and a four hundred pound bucket I had to haul up ten stairs to change the water every twenty feet, the floors were that bad. For all my troubles I slipped a disc in my back. Obviously I hold Remo entirely responsible.
So I cancelled my New Year’s party. The theme for our party this year was TACKY. In the invitations, we told everyone to come in their loudest, flashiest, wildest or just plain ugly clothes and Remo and I had schemed up some wacky antics to go along with the evening. But throwing together a party takes planning and shopping and cleaning before they come and then after they go and all of a sudden I though why am I doing it? With so little precious time before I go back to work, why do stress myself out of my mind? At first Remo fought me on it, with his argument being we do it for the kids. But I think our kids are still too little to appreciate it, they’d get more out of quality time with us, or one on one with other kids. Then snowstorm number two hit and he realized I was right. What could be tackier than changing the venue? I found a great little restaurant that would take us, called up everyone and discussed our new plan. Grownups only, we’re going to a good movie, then out for a nice dinner then grownups only are coming back to our house to ring in the new year. We lost a few people along the way, but I’m actually more excited about New Years Eve now.
I’m working it into my resolutions this year. My new plan is to cut the extra crap and just do what works for my little family. We don’t go out very often, but when we do, I’d rather go out with just the grownups. To connect. When it’s the kid’s time, I want to just keep it theirs. Having friends over and serving up a five course meal with three kids falling apart accomplishes nothing. We can go tobogganing or on a picnic or some excursion somewhere. And it’s cheaper too. I love the little kids in our lives and I’m thinking it makes more sense to have them over for playdates. Then we really get a chance to get to know them and more importantly, my kids will forge better relationships. I guess in the last few months, it hit me that I want more quality in my life and I don’t mean things. We spend so much time rushing around like maniacs, trying to get ahead, and not enough enjoying NOW. Though as I type this I realize I have a dishwasher to set, a load of laundry to fold, a bum to change and a library book to find. I’ll get there. I liken it to the change of seasons. I love it when it starts to get cold in the fall because I know Remo will be home more but then I LOVE spring because we’ve just pulled out of a long, cold winter. Do you have to live havoc to appreciate the other side so much more?
Hey, are you still with me?
Off the top of my head, I can think of one funny story to share. There’s two stores here that do cooking classes. We couldn’t get the closer store to me because they were doing a birthday party, so we went with the little bit farther one. The night we did the class, five girls from work came, taking the train to my house. I made a quick supper that wasn’t quick enough because we were running late. I shipped off two of them ahead of us with the recipe books and the rest of us would meet everybody there. Imagine our surprise when we got there ahead of them. We were late too, so we struggled to catch on to what we’d missed. Fifteen minutes went by. Then half an hour. Terry and Mary went to the wrong store. Thinking they were the first to arrive, they took front row seats while the employees cleaned up around them after the birthday party. They chatted a while before they wondered where everybody was. Got up, looked out the window. The employees left and didn’t ask them what they were doing there. Terry decided to call. My cell phone was off (I never charge it), Remo’s was not on him One of them had used our phone at home and didn’t hang it up right so it was off the hook. Terry told Mary (sounds Dr.Seusish), they should drive over to the other store, and then Mary said “oops, we don’t have a car”. She never mentioned before her daughter was going to be taking it from the parking lot. Terry’s husband wasn’t answering the phone, Mary’s husband had something in his car so big he could only take one passenger. They called a taxi that didn’t show up so Mary called her neighbor who actually came to get them. What killed me though was when Terry thought to call Claudia’s phone and tried to explain where they were, Claudia passed her to me. She would yell “window” and then laugh out of control. I have never in my life laughed so hysterically. I didn’t actually even know what we were laughing about and tears were pouring down my face. Everyone in the course thought she was mangled in an accident somewhere and I couldn’t explain.
They sat in the front of the classroom while those employees cleaned around them, and not one person asked them what they were doing there.
Even though my presents are all BOUGHT and WRAPPED, with Christmas a mere ten sleeps away, my best guess would be I won’t be updating before then, you know how it is. In case I don’t have another chance, may I wish all of you an incredible Christmas with your family and friends. May you make incredible memories and may all your wishes come true. I hope the new year brings only health and happiness. Laugh.
OXOXO,
Allisun
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