This is my life.

Normal

Things are slowly starting to resemble normal around here. The puke seems to be over. The midday naps seem have vanished (boo). And the energy levels have returned. It's crazy up in he-re. I had 4 under 5 running around releasing all the pent up energy they have been storing up this week. It's strange but.. it's nice to be back to normal.

Isabella and I had (ok, have all the time but whatever) an argument last night/this morning about her commitment to her homework/doing well in school/blah blah etc. This particular argument came after I realized she had been sitting on the computer all night after assuring me that she did not have homework, when she did indeed have a test to study for. Well she says.. that's not homework. That's studying, and I didn't ask if she had to study for anything. Oh. My. God. And she doesn't know when it is. Then I ripped all my hair out.

Then midway through the day I received this lovely e-mail in my In-box, which despite all her idiosyncrasies, reminded me why I love this girl so much. She can remember my e-mail address in it's entirety, but can't remember what she wrote down in her Agenda a half hour after she wrote it. That's my girl.

Dear   Mom

   Don’t  worry   our  unit  test  is  on  Tuesday    and  our  vocabulary  test  is  on  Friday  

 Love  Isabella

How am I expected to stay mad at that face? Sometimes it's easier than not, but most of the time I just have to laugh and admit she's more like her mother than I'd like. But don't tell I said that.
 

Dog update and much, much more

 This morning (very early I might add) I received a call from the Vet. Maggie does NOT have cancer. But she does have Osteochondritis Dissecans (or OCD, not to be confused with obsessive compulsive disorder, although when looking up information for Maggie it did come up as a disorder for dogs as well. How... disturbing. Anyhow.) OCD is a a disease of the cartilage that can affect various joints in a dog. With lots of rest, and various anti-inflammatories etc., we should be able to control, or at least slow down the growth. Some dogs with severe OCD can have surgery to repair the joint, but I hope we are a long way from having to deal with that as an option. Since seeing the vet last Tuesday and being on the anti-inflammatory, she seems to be doing better. So that's that. She also needs to loose some weight. Erm. Alot of weight.

Friday night turned into Pukefest 2009 here. It started at midnight with Jackson and Isabella. We were up bathing and cleaning until 4am, when I decided to try and get some sleep. It was gross. I did 10 loads of laundry on Saturday, sheets, towels and blankets alone. Chris still managed to get himself up at 6 and head to Grimshaw, and returned with my "My husband got a new job and I should get a present" present. Only took him 3 months. Still. When he walked in the door at 3pm with a TV for our bedroom, I was pretty happy. Everyone seemed to be on the mend, although Jackson is still not eating properly and has a bad habit of farting and then walking funny. Poor little guy.

Overnight Sunday it hit me. I spent all day yesterday trying not to vomit and/or fall asleep. Chris was sick as well, we ended up in bed by 9pm last night. It was a horrible day. I woke up this morning feeling like a million bucks, all things considered. Anyhow, as I was feeling particularly ill yesterday, I took every opportunity (trust me, there wasn't a lot) to sit down and close my eyes. At one point I may or may not have drifted off. I was watching Jackson with his back to me, I could see him fiddling around with what I assumed was a toy in his hands. I kept opening my eyes, watch him, and then close them again. Finally my curiosity got the best of me. I called his name and he turned around.

Small jar of bum cream, and watching Daddy shave one to many times. Ahem. Punk. He was so proud of himself. I say that alot, don't I.
 
Post Edit: Poor Sydney has succumbed to the flu. That makes all of us. Let's hope this is our puke quota for the year. Blech.

The look of Concentration

I was able to snap off a few pictures before he realized what I was doing and started hamming it up. He gets like this alot, when he is really involved in what he's doing. Focused. He's so smart. All my children are sooo advanced. Just like their mother. The End. 

Not so great News

We have a dog. Did you all know that? Her name is Maggie. She doesn't meet alot of new people, ever. Because, well, she doesn't like a lot of new people, ever. She growls and snarls , shows her teeth and may even try and take a nip at you if she is so inclined. If you come to my home unannounced, you will meet a jumping barking dog at the front door.

 

(Puppy Maggie)

We think she came from a sad place. We think she was born in a puppy mill. She has always been shy, leery of people, and scared of the strangest things. Cardboard boxes. Mop handles. And she does not like hands coming at her face. It took us days to get her out of the kennel she was shipped in and be comfortable with us.

 

(Awkward teenage Maggie)

Maggie has grown up now. She was 5 years old, sometime this past summer. She loves our family unconditionally.  She loves to sleep. She loves to get excited and play. She loves to go crazy outside and run around. She loves eating scraps from the table, and crackers from Jackson. She inexplicably loves my sister in law (alot).She loves Chris the most, the kids a close second. She lets them climb all over her, pull her ears and tail. And she loves to protect her home. She is really the perfect family dog. For us. Besides all the white fur. And the stinky breath.

 

(Such a hard, hard life)

When Chris is out of town, especially overnight, Maggie is my protector. I know that she would scare the bejeezus out of anyone attempting to break into our house. When Chris is home she sleeps on the floor, right below him. When I am home alone, she sleeps right below me. When we go away for the day, I know our house is protected leaving Maggie behind.

 

(Love)

We took her to see the Vet yesterday. They knocked her out, cleaned her teeth (Thank God) gave her shots, trimmed her nails, treated an ear infection, and gave her some x-rays. She has a lesion on her shoulder. Could be nothing. Could be arthritis. Could be Cancer. She has been limping for awhile now. Favoring her left leg. We thought she pulled a muscle at first, but the longer she limped we realized something was wrong.

 

(Discipline)

Having gone through this already with our last dog, following almost the same identical path, we are scared. Within 2 weeks of being diagnosed with shoulder Cancer, we had to put her down. It was sad, it was painful (for her and for us) and it was heartbreaking. The Vet who is treating Maggie is optimistic, she is sending her X-rays down to a specialist. We should know more in a few days. She is to young for Arthritis, she is to young for Cancer.

 

(From the "Photo-shoots gone Bad" Vault)

I find myself watching her since bringing her home last night, talking to her more, loving her more. It's sad, but human nature I suppose, that we only realize how much something (or someone) means to us until we face the possibility of being without them. If, by some horrible chance, we do end up having to deal with the worst case scenario, I think it will be a long time before I am ready to get another dog. Right now though, we are trying to be positive and make her comfortable and happy. Poor Moo moo.

Today

My children were monsters. The peak, the point of my day to which nothing they did could either increase or decrease my annoyance with their antics, was here. I tried to do a photo shoot with them. After a few trying minutes, I gave up getting a good shot. They.just.wouldn't.stop. Punks.

Progress

 A few days ago, we officially switched our "home projects" from outdoors, to indoors for the winter. We accomplished alot this summer, we've accomplished alot in the last 3 years really since purchasing and moving into this house. Let's have a  brief recap, shall we?

This is what the yard and basement looked like when we first signed on the dotted line.

 

Notice the trees, oy the trees. Dead and alive. What a pain in the ass they were. Also, the clay. Also a pain in the ass to smooth out and get rid of. Not that I really had a role in removing and smoothing. More of a supervisory role. Ah Memories. Then the sod. 3 days of rain and a (newly) pregnant wife. Good times.

 

Pay no attention to the dude on the right with the scowl on his face. He is thinking oh _________, what have I gotten myself into. Notice that big open space behind that teeny weeny little running girl? Yay. We'll get back to that space in a minute.

So this summer we managed to finish up a few small odd jobs outside, and build our fence. See our fence? Ain't it purty? (I had to run outside and take this picture in my Jammie's at 8:30 this morning for this post, so I hope you are all appreciative).

With the prospect of a loooong winter ahead, we made the decision the other night to start moving forward again on our basement development. We have made it livable already, with painting the concrete floor, and creating different spaces. We have a large playroom, and living/sitting area complete with the TV, computer, Wii system etc., and of course our spare room.

That empty space above? The first thing we did was build the wall. No ordinary straight easy wall, oh no. We had to go and make it a funky 55 degree angled wall. I had pictures of the wall construction, but my computer suffered a nervous breakdown a few month later and I lost a whole bunch of pictures with this particular set. Boo. So here it is, already drywalled and door hung, from the same angle (sorta) as the picture above. Just a closer shot.

Chris mudded and sanded, mudded and sanded, mudded and sanded, and well you get the idea. He's a bit of an, erm, perfectionist when it comes to that sort of thing. He did a great job, really. Just took for.ever. Sorry honey. Then we painted..

A nice soft blue/grey. This guy? He's delirious after spending months inhaling drywall dust and paint fumes. Also, the only shot of the room I have without the sub-floor showing, apparently I forgot to take pictures of the painting in action as well. Terrible official photographer, aren't I.

The sub-floor was fun to install! And expensive! That crazy idea with the angled wall? Fun! but we did it (and I use the term "we" very loosely here..)

And this is how the room has sat since.. oh.. well the date on this picture set says September 08. We put a bed in of course, and a chest for clothes, TV and a chair. It has a door, so it's been functional. Until Tuesday morning, when I got the call. Let's lay the flooring down. Ohhhhhkay.

Thankfully, we found a nice looking and cheap laminate wood flooring here in town. It took us Tuesday night to get the hang of laying it down and snapping it in properly, and a few hours on Wednesday to finish what we had. I say what we had, because what we had was a box short of laminate. On a holiday. So we moved everything back into the room, welcomed our overnight guest (Hi Dad!) and then finished it off tonight. It looks great. I love it.

See those hand-prints on the top of the picture? The door and the wall? Ya. Thanks my son. That's the last time I let you have Cheezies and wander around. So anyhow. Now we are contemplating our next move. We were all prepared to build the closet in the morning, and now we aren't so sure. It's a BIG job. A hard job. I'll be sure to let you know how it turns out. 
 

Words, words, wonderful words

Since Jackson mastered the art of walking/running/climbing on tables, it has opened up the opportunity to develop his language skills. (Did you know that babies can only work on huge developments one at a time? That's why some babies are early walkers/late talkers or vice versa..)

 

 (Isabella, a few weeks shy of 19 months)

I don't like to compare or categorize my children, ever, but I'll make an exception today... So uh, let's see here. Isabella. Well sheesh. The kid didn't move off her chubby little buddha butt until well near 18 months. We liked to say that she was so content, so.. laissez fair.. but hindsight is 20/20 isn't it. She was just to busy working on her vocabulary. I didn't realize at the time (being a slightly youngish first time mother) that her speech was shall we say.. on the advanced side? Her Mimi and I used to make her say and use extremely large and funny words just to make everyone laugh. I really didn't realize until much later that this ability was unusual for such a young age.

(Sydney, just shy of 19 months)

And that brings us to Sydney. Dear Sydney. I clearly remember thinking that she wasn't going to talk at all. Ever. She walked on time(ish). But no words. Never much of a repeater. Until. She found her voice. And there was no stopping her once she did. Words started tumbling out at a rapid pace. She STILL talks alot. She understands alot. Sometimes too much. Her brain is always turned "on". There is rarely a blond moment with this kid. She remembers everything, and can articulate her thoughts and feelings like no other 4 year old I've ever known. (OK, ok, I haven't known THAT many 4 years old, but still.) Let's just say her mouth has definitely caught up with her brain.

(Jackson of course, a few days over 19 months)

Next we move on to Jackson. My little boy. Our little echo, really. At 19 months, he has officially been working solely on his speech for a few months now. Once he mastered that pesky walking matter (skipping crawling entirely, although he will do it know when playing etc, and although a wee bit awkward, he is surprisingly ok at it), he was off to the races with speech. He started with the typical Mama, Dada, Moo moo etc. And maybe, just maybe it seems like he has picked it up a lot faster than his sisters because I am busy and can't spend every waking minute practicing and watching him develop. Maybe. But he's good. he is constantly surprising us (and making us laugh) at how well he can repeat things back to us already. And he's clear. By far the cutest things he says are peoples names. I thought we'd have a new nickname for Sydney for sure, but nope. He can say it clear as day. And the little boy I babysit. His name is Turner. No problem. Toilet paper. Crackers. Downstairs. Outside. Mine. Just to name a few. He's good, this one.

We're lucky to have such smart, clearly advanced children. Smirk.

Do you see what I see??

Here?

No? How about now?

Really? Ok then, how about NOW???

 

It's a gosh darned spider. In November. Crawling around on the snow. What's the world coming to? I tolerate them in the SUMMER because I have to. It's time to move North. The North Pole is looking mighty inviting right about now. Sheesh.
 
 

Political Uncorrectedness

"I'm so glad I'm not Chinese, I'd never eat again. Blech."

If you know my children at all, this comment should be easy to attribute.

Also? He'd make such a beautiful bride. Isn't having sisters fun?

Through the looking glass

Not the best picture, but I like it. It was taken from inside one window looking out at the other. The had just realized we could see each other this way.