Overheard in our house this morning:
“What are you guys eating?” I asked my daughter.
“It’s just the most final thing in the whole world,” says Jenny.
“You mean raspberries?”
“Yes, raspberries.”
Apparently raspberries are the most final thing in the world..whatever that means.
This afternoon:
Hearing scuffling and arguing, I told the kids to stop fighting.
“We’re not fighting,” Jenny says.
“Yes, we are fighting!!” yells Elias.
“No, we’re not!!”
“Yes, we are!!”
You get the picture. Elias is such a boy.
Filed under: Holidays, Illness and Injury, Kiddos, Life, in general, Mi familia | Tags: Blogging, flu, Life
I miss the old days – when words just floated through my fingers into the keyboard and extreme fatigue or nausea didn’t place a block in my head. But I have to re-start somewhere as I’m not about to give up. I’m getting a netbook soon and I’m planning great things with it – like spending one evening a week catching up on my writing – so I’m not going to quit blogging just yet.
Anyway, here is a recap of this past week (post-birthday entry).
Jenny got over her infection quickly, thank heavens, but all the kids are still a bit runny nosed. Erik was in the ER on Friday night because his breathing was so wheezy and I didn’t really feel like leaving it alone was in his best interest. He just now finished up a four day course of prednisone. He’s still coughing up a storm and I’m a little bit concerned that he might need antibiotics to get rid of it.
Friday after the hospital, I went to watch Mike play hockey with his dad. I don’t know who won. I spent the majority of the time taking Elias to the bathroom. I’m seriously thinking that he likes the bathrooms in the new arena so much that he’s peeing his pants just so we have to go there. The third time I took him, we stayed there for nearly fifteen minutes, drying his pants and underwear under the automatic dryers. Jenny kept saying she had to go again while we were there - I think this is because she really likes the sink and wanted an excuse to wash her hands one more time . My kids are so weird sometimes. The big perk to Friday night and that ER visit is that Mike set it up for the kids to spend the night at his parents’ house, since he was playing hockey and we didn’t know whether I would be going home or not. They left the game a bit early and I just had Erik for the rest of the night.
We had a lazy start on Saturday, mostly because of our late night on Friday and the fact that this was the first Saturday that Mike has had off for about a month. I honestly cannot remember much about the day, except that it was fairly surreal having only one child to deal with. We headed over to Mike’s parents’ house around eleven and played games and napped for most of the afternoon (read: Mike played games, I napped). We had a nice Mennonite meal for supper – corn, Farmer’s Sausage (don’t ask – I have no idea what to compare it to because I’ve never eaten it…it smells good cooking, anyway), homemade noodles and tilapia. Okay, so the tilapia was mostly for me and not really Mennonite at all. In fact, being blackened cajun tilapia, it was pretty much the total opposite of Mennonite food. Mike had yet another game on Saturday night, this time with his rec. team and I decided to go because we were already out anyway. Once again, I don’t know who won. I spent most of that game telling my children not to play with the caution tape strung all over the arena and feeling frustrated that one woman there was letting her grandson do whatever he wanted with it. And also, talking to my sister-in-law and her sister-in-law. I haven’t had much time to talk to Marcy lately and it was a real treat. She has the baby bug pretty bad so she’s enjoying our kids and my pregnancy and hoping to have a few more next year.
Sunday came too early as we had decided to go to the early service. We did this because our Thanksgiving meal was set for 3:30 that afternoon. Second service gets out after noon most weeks, which would give us about forty-five minutes to go shopping for salad fixings (since that was my offering to the meal), have lunch and get the kids home and to bed for a nap. We decided that although we would inevitably be very tired in the morning, we would force ourselves to get up and get to church by 9:15. Church was over by 10:30 and we headed out to get everything done. The great thing is that the kids were down, I had the salad more or less ready to go and we were able to have a nap, too.
Thanksgiving dinner went very well and we celebrated my birthday afterward. Again, I can’t remember much except that my sister-in-law is making me a nice crocheted toque (a hat, Americans 
) and Mike’s parents gave me a nice bit of money to add to my computer fund. We left in time to get home and put the kids to bed in a hurry before Mike went to yet another hockey game – this time a church game. Three hockey games with three different teams in three days - yes, that’s my life. This time I stayed home (obviously, since I didn’t feel that leaving the kids home alone was a good idea) and was determined to be productive. I sat at the computer for at least forty-five minutes and suddenly started feeling sick to my stomach. It got worse over the next hour and I wondered whether I should stick to the plan or avoid any work. I finally decided that I would feel sick whether I folded laundry or swept the floor or laid on the couch reading. I swept under the table (I think my kids think we have a dog – they leave plenty to eat for him under there…come to think of it, having a dog would make my job easier at times). I noticed while I was sweeping that the walls were coloured on, spilled on, and scuffed up and decided that while I was at it, I should wash them. So, totally against my nature, I grabbed a bucket and some towels and started scrubbing. With the aid of a Magic Eraser (I love those things!), I got it looking much better. They are still in sore need of a coat of paint, but at least now if I feel like painting, the walls will be clean.
I finished up the evening by folding about four loads of laundry and getting another two or three going. In between the cleaning, I threw up a few times. It never did make me feel better.
On Monday we managed to sleep in until nine and then Mike got up with the kids and fed them and entertained them until after eleven, when I finally got up. The strangest thing is that with how sick I was on Sunday night, I expected to feel bad when I woke up. I felt totally normal on Monday morning – go figure! When we finally were up and dressed and fed, we went back to Mike’s parents’. My sister-in-law from out of town had wanted to play a particular game all weekend and Mike and his dad finally played it with her that afternoon, just before she and her husband had to head home. I played another game with my mother-in-law and brother-in-law while the kids napped (or rather, while they messed around and got into trouble about six times for not napping).
After more food, more dessert and a few more games, we went home and had supper. I talked to my brother after not talking to him for a few months and Mike slept a bit while the kids were watching a movie. This was also when Elias decided to somehow get the disk drive stuck open. We really can’t figure it out and will probably be taking it somewhere to get it fixed. Mike rented a movie that we didn’t like very much and we stayed up later than we should have. Nothing new there, anyway.
This morning at around seven, I woke up to hear Jenny yelling, “Oh, my! Oh, my! Oh, my!” I ran in and she said something about her “breathe” and that she was going to throw up. I rushed her into the bathroom and..nothing. I figured taking her back to my room would be smarter than sending her back to bed, just in case the puking really did happen at some point. It turned out to be a very good decision – although my sheets are now in the wash and my garbage can has vomit in it. After throwing up, we both went back to sleep and slept until after nine when the boys woke up. I’m now assuming that whatever was wrong with me on Sunday night is what was wrong with Jenny this morning, as she seems just fine now. I guess it’s just a really short-lived bug.
Anyway, I should probably be having a nap right now, but like I said, you have to start somewhere and now seemed like a good time for it. And anyway, I can always go to bed early tonight. Oh, right, Mike has another hockey game. Sigh.
Filed under: Home Sweet Home, Kiddos, Life, in general, Money, reading | Tags: large families, multiple children, space solutions, small house, Mary Ostyn, A Sane Woman's Guide to Raising a Large Family
I am currently working my way through A Sane Woman’s Guide to Raising a Large Family by Mary Ostyn. It is fantastic so far. The author is the mother of ten – four biological children and six adopted – and she advocates attachment parenting and co-sleeping andis a Christian to boot. She also has a very relaxed attitude about her large family. She obviously takes it seriously, but isn’t uptight about it. My favourite part so far was when she admitted that she doesn’t make her bed every day. Ahhh, how nice. A little reality when it comes to housework. She talks about the perceptions people have of the mothers of large families – that they are either insane or incredibly organized – and how she is neither.
Anyway, I’ll probably get around to a more detailed book report when I finish the book, but I realized that what I wanted to write about today tied into what I learned reading this book.
One of the things that Mrs. Ostyn advocates is room-sharing between children. Obviously this is necessary in a family with ten children unless you are millionaires and can afford a house with eleven rooms. She also encourages readers to change their current space rather than assume they need something bigger when they add to their family.
I would not be considered the mother of a large family – yet. I intend to be in that category eventually, but with only three children, I’m not quite “crazy” yet, especially living here, where it is very common to have a minimum of four children per family. Knowing that I at least hope for more children makes me want to think of myself this way even now and prepare our family for more children even before we are expecting them (yeah, that answers that question – I am not pregnant again…yet).
We currently live in a two bedroom, one bathroom home with no basement and only about 800 square feet of living space. We have a shed for storage, but no attic and no garage. We have three children sharing one room that contains a bunk bed, a toddler bed, a playpen, bookcase, toy box and Little Tikes vanity. We have a total of two closets in our home. Yes, two. No pantry and a minimal amount of kitchen cabinet space. We currently have over the door hooks or organizers in every room, just for extra space for toys, towels and clothes. There was a time not too long ago that I looked around this house in despair and wondered how we would manage if we could not move before another baby was born. I have talked to God about this and asked that He not give us another child until we can move, but now I think He may have other plans for us. Fifty years ago, families lived in houses the size of ours with four kids – and often more. They did not have huge television sets, computers or an abundance of modern appliances taking up space. Their children did not have every new Playskool toy from the Sears Wish Book (was there a Wish Book back then?) and did not need what our children seem to “need” now.
I will admit that we have too much stuff. We have more clothing than we need, my children have more toys than they need and we have managed to fill much of our space with other things that we very seldom use.
While getting rid of at least some of this stuff will help our space issues immensely, adding better storage solutions will help with the things we can’t go without. One issue I have is running out of places to store food. It is a huge money saver to buy in bulk and limit your grocery shopping trips as much as possible. The problem I have is that when I do stock up like this, I end up with food all over my counter tops and even on the floor in my kitchen because there is no cabinet space left for it. Yesterday while putting something up on the wall in my hallway, I realized that if we put shelves up at the top of the walls in the hallway, they would not be seen by most people (as the hallway is mostly hidden from view when in the living room) and they would hold some of the gadgets I don’t use often, or the bulk foods I don’t have room for in the kitchen. The size of our house comes in handy here, as the hallway is right outside the kitchen and I wouldn’t have to walk far to get to what I needed. Yes, it may make our house look a bit cluttered to have shelves all over the walls, but it is a space solution that is relatively cheap and does not require any actual construction.
I have determined that we could easily sleep four kids in the second bedroom, although the space will get tight when it comes to clothing and toys/books. Under bed storage will be used under every bed (including the play pen when possible) and whatever isn’t needed in the house will go to the shed. I am also considering buying a second, smaller shed to go just off the back deck so that the kids’ clothing could be stored there when not being used (i.e. larger and smaller sizes that are being saved for other kids). In the winter, it is a pain in the neck to have to walk all the way across the back yard to get to the shed for kids and maternity clothes when needed, but there is simply no space in the house for the dozens of bins required to hold all that clothing.
My hope is that by using our space more efficiently, we will be able to stay in this house much longer than we assumed we would be able to. We paid $126,000 for this house four years ago and our payments with property taxes are under $900 a month – you cannot beat that without living in a trailer or renting. Currently, we would have to pay upwards of $250,000 for the size of house we would want to move into – something with a minimum of three bedrooms and a basement. Staying here a little longer will enable us to save money and build up the equity in our home. It will also help us down the road to know how to live in somewhat cramped circumstances and know that we can manage it without any trouble (or without much trouble, anyway).
Stay tuned for more on the book in a few days (I’m almost done!). And if you don’t want to wait, buy the book – or do like I did and check it out at your local library.
My blog has felt a bit like a downer lately, so here’s something I found pretty funny this last week.
A list of non-recyclable things recently found in our bins on a trip to the recycling depot:
- A soother (pacifier)
- A doll comb
- A light blue baby t-shirt
- Two training wheels
These items were presumably stashed by Erik, who was more than likely hording them so that he could have something to play with in case his older siblings ran off with all the other toys. I’m not sure what he planned to do with the training wheels…perhaps a miniature bicycle for himself?
Just when you think life is about to settle down, you get thrown right back into craziness!
I have just returned home from spending two nights in the hospital with Erik. Friday he seemed healthy and happy but by Saturday morning, he was miserable. His breathing was awful and the inhaler wasn’t doing the trick. I took him into the emergency room after noon that day, thinking they would treat his asthma quickly with a nebulizer and then send us home. The doctor took one listen to his chest and said it was pneumonia.
How does a child go from healthy and happy one day to having pneumonia the next?! And in the heat of summer, to boot! Anyway, we spent most of the afternoon in emergency and then they admitted him and transfered us upstairs to the ward. Thankfully we had our own room and bathroom – when we stayed in the ICU when he was three weeks old, we were just curtained off and using a common bathroom. I was able to come home that evening to pack clothes and other overnight things (and a bunch of books) so it wasn’t so bad. The worst of it was that he was dehydrated and needed an IV for fluids – but they couldn’t get the IV in. They would get into a vein and then lose it. They tried thirteen times (THIRTEEN!!) to get one in and finally gave up. Something like four different nurses, the doctor and an anaesthetist tried and all failed. In the end, we just gave him pedialyte 5ml at a time every ten minutes or so.
About two o’clock on Sunday morning, he turned a corner and got really thirsty. His breathing improved around the same time, and then got even better a few hours later. My doctor still didn’t feel good about sending him home because he was obviously still struggling to breathe at that point. We spent a very restless Sunday in the hospital, but were able to leave for three hours in the afternoon. Erik then had a three hour evening nap at the hospital, which means I was up fairly late with him last night before he was willing to go to sleep. The first night we were there, they were waking us up every few hours to give him medication of some sort, but last night we were able to sleep through the night without many interruptions.
We left the hospital just before nine this morning, and our doctor said that releasing him at this point was still a “calculated risk”. I have to pay very close attention to him and he’ll have to continue on two different antibiotics and a steroid to open up his airways. If he starts to have any real trouble breathing again, we’ll have to go back into the hospital. By the time we left this morning, he was so antsy! He just wanted to crawl around all over the place, but you can’t exactly let a baby crawl around on hospital floors for very long. Not only that, but the hallway I was on seemed to be full of not so friendly patients and visitors. Most of the people there actually looked like they were quite old and on the brink of death. What a strange thing to throw a baby right into the middle of all that! It comes with the territory, though, I suppose, as it’s not like we have a children’s hospital here.
Anyway, I still have more to say about the last few weeks, but I think I’m going to have to wait for another day. I’m wiped out, incredibly hot (it’s so warm in my house right now!!!) and my house is a wreck from all the running around this last week.
Where do I start?
Here, I suppose.
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind so I’ll just have to do highlights. Part two will probably cover the last week, or might just be rambling about how much I hate cleaning, how hot it is and the frustrating activities of my stomach.
Last week was sick week. My children puked. I puked. My children got pink eye. I did not. (Thankfully!)
Last weekend was “hardly ever home weekend”. We started with a wedding two hours away. We left at nine o’clock Saturday morning and got home at eleven that night. The boys were still sporting a bit of colour on their eyeballs which succeeded in freaking a few people out. We were in the car way too much that day and poor Erik was stuck in a stroller for most of the time when we weren’t in the car. The wedding was outside at the bride’s parents property. Their muddy property. So Erik, who does not walk yet, had to be kept off the ground by his mother who just couldn’t bear to have him all muddy. We went out for supper and he wouldn’t even stay in the highchair, but kept crawling out of it onto the table.
We got to bed so late that night that we decided we’d stay home from church the next day. This is a rare thing for us and it was more than a little bit strange, but it was oh, so nice to stay in bed until ten and not have to rush to get out of the door. We did, however, get out of the door around noon to attend an airshow. Tickets were fifteen dollars per adult and parking at the airport was fifteen dollars also. We thought we’d be smart and save money by parking the van at the arena and taking the shuttle to the airport, which was free. We packed snacks, changes of pants for Elias, earplugs and various other items, but decided not to bring chairs, but to just use blankets on the grass near the airstrip. BIG mistake. The skies opened up and dumped rain on us as we were taking the shuttle to the show. We waited in the airport until it cleared up and then went out to the strip to see what the best course of action would be. We found a spot that looked somewhat dry and put our blankets down. I had Mike put his hand on the blankets to see if they would soak through. No water. So he put his foot on them. And the water gushed up through three layers of fabric. So, I cleverly suggested we lay down our rain jackets and sit on them, assuming that they would be water proof and that we wouldn’t get wet that way. Wow, was I wrong. The kids didn’t seem to care, but I went around the rest of the day with a very wet backside. When we finally gave up and packed up our things to go walk on the paved areas, we found the asphalt warm and dry. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. The show went until nearly five and we made our way to the shuttle pick-up area to catch the bus back to our van. We waited and waited and waited. Thankfully we had friends there who we hung out with and the kids were just having fun, but in the end, we didn’t make it back to our van until nearly seven o’clock. What a long day.
The thing I could have used the most after a week of being sick and a weekend of being insanely busy was a nice calm week of nothing. But this week is VBS at our church and I am in charge of pre-school and kindergarten games. Tomorrow is our last day and it has been quite a week so far. But I think I’ll leave that for part two. Just for the fun of it.
One of my greatest role models of mothering is my dear friends’ mother. Her daughters were my closest friends before marriage and the only thing that has changed that is distance. They were both in our wedding and I love them like sisters. I spent a good deal of time with them and their family and had the chance to observe what a great mom they have and what a great influence she has had on them. One thing that she did at every turn was talk to God. She talked to Him and about Him all the time. I have found both of these areas lacking in my life lately and have been making an effort to live faith in front of my children.
I think it really started with the crisis my sister-in-law was in a few weeks back. Thinking she may lose the baby or that she might not make it through having him was terrifying to me and I totally broke down. I talked to God and one of the things I kept feeling is that I don’t want to do this again. I’m tired of losing it whenever something unexpected or frightening happens in my life. I want to be able to calmly approach the throne and ask for help. I want to thank Him in advance for what He will do, rather than beg Him to do my will. It seems that one way I will be able to avoid breaking down in crisis is by including God in more of my daily life.
I want my kids to grow up seeing God all around them – not just in the Bible or on Sunday mornings in church. I want them to thank Him for the fact that He makes the sun come up each morning, not just when He blesses us with something surprising. Yesterday I noticed how green everything was around us when I was driving out of town to a friends house. I mentioned this to Jenny and Elias by saying how great it was that God made it green. They seem to understand at least a little now, and I know that if I make this way of life normal to them, they will understand more all the time.
How do you make faith real in your life or the lives of those around you (especially your children)?
Filed under: Kiddos
My beautiful kids enjoying their day on the lake:
Filed under: Illness and Injury, Kiddos, Life, in general | Tags: kids, stress, tonsillectomy, wisdom teeth removal
This week has been stressful enough for me. Yes, that’s right, I’m done with stress. No more for me, thanks.
Oh, wait, there’s more that cannot be avoided. Great!
First the week in review. Sounds nice – like a radio show – doesn’t it?
Monday: Erik’s birthday and party. Went well, didn’t cause me too much stress in the end, weather was good enough to eat outside. I did, however, have a small run-in with a door frame. In which my toe collided quite painfully with it. And a later incident where I put a steak knife into my middle finger while trying to get frozen pudding out of a small thin plastic cup. But otherwise, it was a good day.
Tuesday: Erik’s one year check-up. Found out he is seriously under-weight and has swollen lymph nodes…or something like that. And also that he doesn’t have enough “words”. He’s only a year old, for heaven’s sake!! How many normal one year olds have a three word vocabulary? Well, not mine, anyway.
Wednesday: Jenny had a dentist appointment. Found out that her thumb-sucking is starting to morph her jaw. Great. Had a lovely picnic in the park, though, after her appointment and the kids got rub-on tattoos (of Spiderman and My Little Pony..you can guess which child had which), face painting and got to use sidewalk chalk (the city was putting on some sort of free thing for kids there).
Thursday: Bible study in the morning where only one other person showed up. We took advantage of the babysitting for half of the regular time. I wrote a poem, we talked, I held her baby and then we went home. I then fed Mike some lunch, fed the kids, put them to bed and left with Erik to the hospital when my babysitter got her. We sat through a very long pre-surgery appointment where I learned all the risks of having your wisdom teeth removed, like nerve damage or death!! Erik didn’t help as he decided to be grouchy the entire time. Groucy and sick and wheezing. We then went to another part of the hospital where Erik had blood drawn to test his kidney function and a number of other things I don’t really understand. Went to the bank and the grocery store and rushed home to relieve the babysitter who could only stay so long. Went shopping after supper by myself, but somehow didn’t feel much less stress.
And, deep breath, for the finish.
Friday: Erik had his one year shots, rather uneventful, Elias fell and scraped his knee in the parking lot leaving the clinic. Had a phone call soon after getting home, finalizing my TONSILLECTOMY. Yes, that’s right, my swollen, diseased tonsils are coming out on the 29th of this month. That’s like, ten days away. And Mike and my mother-in-law are both working and cannot get out of working on that day. And my sister-in-law will be eight days from her due date on that day. The good news is that I have a friend who offered to help me with the kids. With any luck, I can send Jenny and maybe Elias to another friends house and then the one who offered would only have one or two of the kids rather than all three.
I guess I skipped right into next week without even realizing it.
Yeah, so the week to come holds lots of planning and probably cleaning. Getting ready to be on my back for a good deal of the time and in pain for the rest of it. Tomorrow morning I get my wisdom teeth pulled. Sunday I’ll attempt to say “Happy Father’s Day” to Mike and call my dad…at the very least. Monday I’m still supposed to be resting from the wisdom teeth surgery. Tuesday through Sunday will be making and freezing meals, stocking up on sore-throat friendly foods (pudding, anyone?) and arranging the details of the 29th so that everything happens just right. I can feel the stress already. The good news is that I only have one appointment (as of right now) on Wednesday and not much else going on. I should be able to get things done without having to go out much during the day.
In other, somewhat unrelated news, I was hoping to join another Craftster swap once I have feedback from the one I just finished, but it looks like I should take a break until I’m recooperated from my tonsillectomy. Depending on the swap theme, it could be easy enough to do while I’m still a bit under the weather, but I’d rather wait until I’m totally out of the water as far as post-operative bleeding goes (doesn’t that sound like fun?). So as fun as the swap I just did was, I will have to wait.. 
Oh, well.
All this busy-ness may also mean a break from blogging, just to give you a heads up. Just because I don’t write for a week or so doesn’t mean I died on the operating table. I mean, I suppose it could mean that, but it’s pretty unlikely.
Filed under: Kiddos
Here’s a few pictures of Erik over the last year – it always amazes me how they change so quickly!
June 15th, 2008
September, 2008
December, 2008
March, 2009
June 15th, 2009
