Warmth

It’s probably a little too optimistic of me, wearing a dress and sandals today. But it just seems like I’ve been bundling up in winter gear too long. The sun is warm. It’s just that there is still a bunch of snow to melt away. I feel like life is going to get a little better when we can get to a playground. Maybe.

I can wear summery clothing today as I’m not going anywhere, though. My Volvo’s in for a rather expensive service so I’m housebound for the time being.

The whole house seems warmer. Perhaps because we just eliminated a major source of drafts.

We moved into this house a year ago. On our one year anniversary, earlier this month, our real estate agent stopped by with a lovely plant and congratulations card. Ashamedly, I told her I couldn’t invite her in as we were currently living in a bomb site, oh and we hadn’t actually made any of the improvements we had discussed with her. She was understanding; she didn’t know that we had since had another child until she turned up.

But we finally have done something. We got the patio door and a large picture window replaced. They really needed it. And we’re really happy with the result.

Now, to tackle the 50 million other projects that I would love to start on…

(oh, sorry, no spare income, children to raise, blah blah blah)

And yes, it was horrible.

So it turns out that hiding under that virus was a baby that, like, does stuff. Callum giggles heartily, with a dimpled mustache. He blows raspberries. And he enjoys applesauce and Farley’s biscuits. He likes to have conversations, making all kinds of different noises, and is seriously teething – he could injure someone with the force of his gummy bite! Who knew.

Oliver turned into a crazy person on Sunday afternoon after eating about 20 chocolate mini eggs. Like CRAZY. Screaming, running, manic crazy. Thankfully slept it off (after 20 minutes of bedtime hysterics) and is back to normal.

I should be unpacking and tidying and making dinner. Instead I am catching up on a long weekend of missed emails and blogs and all sorts. Okay, I MUST go and make dinner now before Oliver and Mark get home. Trying a new recipe of thai-ish chicken meatballs and noodles. Sort of scared it’s going to be horrible, but it’s similar in flavouring to something I used to make in England with ground pork. So what the hell, we’ll see how it is. And as Oliver is a complete carnivore lately, he just wants all meat all the time, this should satisfy him.

Oliver dool it

Oliver is really cracking me up lately. Despite my own personal lack of ability to simultaneously properly care for a toddler and a newborn, individually they are great.

We’re at the grocery store yesterday. I put some cream in the cart.

“Milk”, he says.

“No”, I correct him, “it’s cream.”

I overhear the following self-talk; it goes something like this:

“Cream. For coffee. Coffee’s only for grown ups. Yep.” And nods, like he’s thinking, I’d better remember that, it’s only for grown ups.

He always insists on doing things for himself now, like taking his shoes off, brushing his teeth (we still do it afterwards), or washing his face after a meal. He normally says “Oliver dool it”. We’re not sure how “do” has become pronounced “dool”, but that’s how he says it.

The other day, we were watching the Wonder Pets, and there was a bunny rabbit called Ollie.

So I explain to him how his name is Ollie too, like Oliver, but shorter.

So now, once in a while, we get to hear “Ollie dool it” – I’m just wondering which aspect of his personality is named Ollie…

Sick, again.

I suppose the return of the these honking and pooping damn Canada geese to our yard is a positive sign of spring, right? Right?

Callum is REALLY sick. He might have pneumonia – the x-rays done yesterday were too overexposed so my doctor couldn’t say for sure. He’s choking so much on phlegm that he’s truly vomitting a lot, not just having reflux, and it’s kind of scary when he chokes in the middle of the night and it seems like he might stop breathing. His inhalers really aren’t doing that much.

It’s also frustrating because it sort of seems like I am still dealing with a 2 month old, not a 4 going on 5 month old. We had started a little bit of solid food, and now he’s refusing it, after enjoying it. He’s not awake and alert that much. He’s fussing at night. I feel like his seemingly constant poorliness (is that a word? probably not) is really holding his development back. Or maybe it’s just me. I just feel like Oliver was doing a lot more at this age.

A bit of a possible break coming up – Thursday we’re going up to Ottawa to stay with my grandparents, along with my parents, for the long weekend. Lots of people to entertain Oliver and to hold Callum. Just not really looking forward to the car journey.

Edited to add: Okay, not pneumonia after all, but I think I’m going to continue the antibiotics anyway because he needs to get rid of the phlegm. And he is actually cooing and smiling at me today so I hope he’s on the up.

randomness

Callum is sick again. Damn Oliver daycare germs. He’s not really waking up at night, but he’s fussing about every 2 or 3 hours, which feels awful after just having said goodbye to night waking. He’s back on inhalers, which he hates.

He’s 4 months old now. I know it’s getting repetitive, but I just can’t get over how BIG he is. My mother and I bought him some new sleepers this week as he’s about grown out of all of Olivers’ old ones. As in, the next clothes of Oliver’s to grow into are the ones he wore when he was WALKING. Sizing is always different, but he’s basically gone into a lot of 12 month stuff now. Just crazy. (Anything he has from Next, from England, he’s in a 3-6 month size. I don’t get it.) I haven’t had him weighed for a while, but he must be around 18-20 lbs. At 4 months old!!

All of us have survived the weekend trauma of giving Oliver’s dummies to the Easter Bunny. He’s pretty much stopped asking for them. He is, however, still taking a long time to get to sleep, but it does happen eventually. And we’re reading a lot more books, which is only a good thing.

I think it’s probably only fair that if Callum wears all of Oliver’s old clothes, Oliver should get to wear some of Callum’s new ones? Apparently the manufacturer of this Mickey Mouse set thought that 18lb babies have giant heads. I mean, his head is big, but not THAT big.

I just filed my tax return. We’re getting a whopping great refund. EXCELLENT. It turns out that having two kids is GREAT at tax time.

We almost decided to use it to go to an all inclusive resort with a baby/toddler day program or a nanny. However, I think we’ll wait on that for another year. I’m not quite ready to pass Callum over to someone all day so I can drink margaritas and swim. I would feel just a smidge guilty about that. Gimme another year or two and I’ll be all over it.

We are going to use our riches to get a babysitter once in a while, and go out to dinner or whatever. Just need to find one…

And I’ve been spending too much time on this, but it was kind of fun.

Give dummy. Easter Bunny. Presents.

We’re going to say goodbye to some dear old friends this weekend.

First of all, we meant to get rid of these things ages ago; I don’t really know what happened. When Oliver started daycare in January 2007, he wasn’t actually all that attached to his ‘dummies’, and so we sent one with him just in case, but they never used it. So he’s been successfully napping at daycare for over a year without using it. At home, he would NEVER have a nap without it.

Lately, just in the last couple of weeks, he seems EXTRA attached to his dummies, like he’s in some kind of obsessive relationship with them. He has to go and visit it in his bed (he keeps them there as they’re the only place they’ve been allowed since he was about 1), just to suck on them a couple of times, and then he’s fine again. And he’s started asking for it when he falls down and hurts himself. And he likes to talk about them.

So I don’t know, I guess we just got fed up. So we started talking about them, too. And just suddenly decided to tell him that the Easter Bunny is going to bring him lots of gifts if he gives the Easter Bunny his dummies. Conveniently, there was a rather good sale at Toys R Us when I started planning this, and I bought him a nice set of brooms and mops and dustpans (no I’m not making him clean the house; it’s one of his current obsessions). Also, we went to the Dollar Store, where I don’t always like to get him things as I am sure they are full of lead and not really properly tested but they had Diego slippers for $1! And Diego sippy cups and mugs! And a Little People colouring and sticker book! And lots of other cool things that only cost a dollar! He doesn’t really watch Diego but he does know who he is. So I was pretty impressed with the haul.

And it turns out that the Easter Bunny will be making public appearances in the manner of Santa Claus at our local mall starting today. How convenient!

In a twist to the story, I did some reading up about getting toddlers to give up their pacifiers yesterday. And I found that lots of people cut a hole in them and the kids would be upset about them ‘breaking’ but would get over it. I couldn’t help myself; I cut a giant hole in one of them before he went to bed. I don’t know what it was, but I sort of enjoyed the evilness of it. And boy was he upset last night. Just sobbing because it clearly wasn’t giving him the pleasure that it normally does. But we read some extra books, and eventually he went to sleep like normal and didn’t wake up at all in the night.

So I think tomorrow morning, a rather confused dude dressed up in a bunny suit is going to receive some old bits of plastic (and I mean old; these are his dummies from when he was like 6 months old!) and in return Oliver will get a big bag of toys and he’ll probably forever associate rabbits with trauma. Oh well. I mean, he’s having a tantrum about EVERYTHING these days (having a cup with a lid; having his food cut by anyone other than him; having a banana peeled before it’s handed to him; what IS IT about toddlerhood??), we might has well have him be upset about it now while we can manage it with the rest of the terrible two’s.

On the positive side? Several rambunctious choruses of NO MORE MONKEYS JUMPING ON THE BED yesterday, and a very new obsession with In the Night Garden, which just started on Canadian tv. I wake up in the night with “yes my name is Iggle Piggle, Iggle Piggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle” stuck in my head. He won’t stop talking about Makka Pakka and the Ninky Nonk. I’m hoping he’s going to be over it before he sees all the Night Garden toys in England when we are there in July!

Does she live here?

I often can’t write what I want to say if I have something to get off my chest, as I feel censored by the fact that people very close to me (like my husband and my parents) read these pages. I guess I could use the ‘private’ post option and give limited access, but I haven’t done that.

Instead, it turns out that I don’t need to write a post as the normally hilarious Linda at All & Sundry has written something that captures it exactly. It’s like she was here in our house on a normal day. Except she was at her house. Which of course means that sometimes when life feels like garbage, you realize that life feeling like garbage can be a universal experience. Does that make me feel better? Not sure yet.

Anyway, this is perfect. Except for the bit where she crawls into bed and reads a book. I don’t feel like I have the luxury of doing that. Plus I should really buy some new books. Or even join the library.

And YES I KNOW it’s going to get better. I just need to wallow in it for now.