For the love of Pete!

Nick got sick. Lily got sick. Lily hasn't slept for longer than 10 minutes at a time in two nights and two days. We spent two hours at the Medicentre waiting to see a doctor and now we know that at least she doesn't have an ear infection.

In some strange way, this page makes all the hours of lost sleep a little bit less painful.

'Twas the week before Christmas

I figured I'd better pop on and post a bit of an update. I've been lacking in the inspiration department as of late and next week looks like it might be a busy one, so here goes nothing!

Nicholas came home from school on Thursday complaining that he ate too much at his class Christmas party. He suffered through supper then spent almost an hour rolling around on the floor moaning. Just before bed he made a sudden dash to the bathroom where he proceeded to throw up his entire supper and probably some of the junk from the party. Yum. I managed to get splashed on the leg. Eeew. He then perked up, ate some toast, and went to bed. I figured all was well but right after midnight he woke up and threw up all over Lily's bedspread. Believe me, at 1 am you really don't want to be dealing with a blanket covered in vomit and a baby who has decided that she should wake up for the excitement. I finally got Lil back to sleep around 2. I kept Nick home from school the next day, which I really didn't think was a big deal since it was only a half day anyhow.

And then there's Liam. For anyone who's not familiar with Liam's back, it's a pretty tempermental kind of thing. He put it out a bit a couple of months ago then he fell last week and tweaked it again. On Thursday (right around the time of Nick's rolling around on the floor with a bellyache) Liam tried to get up from playing with Lily and put his back out. Since then, he's been spending quality time with a bag of snow and limping around in a Quasimodo-esque manner. He's been to the chiropractor twice in two days and goes back again early next week.

As for Lily, she's truly turning into a toddler. Her range of words and signs is increasing rapidly and, of course, that means that she now knows the word "no". It usually comes out as "no no no no" which is quite cute unless I'm trying to get her to eat something or get dressed. On the topic of eating, she's decided that all food going into her mouth has to come from her own hand or on a spoon in her hand. It's been a bit of a struggle but I'm amazed at how quickly she's mastering it. She's been so excited to be feeding herself that she's probably eating twice the amount of solids she was a few weeks ago and she's still nursing as much as ever. I see a sudden growth spurt in her near future.

And then there's me. I'm muddling along as usual. I've been in a bit of a funk as of late but I'm feeling better the past few days. I'm looking forward to Liam being home for the next 10 days and also seeing friends who are in from out of town. My biggest wish for this Christmas break is to get some extra sleep as I've been really missing out on that lately.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Party like a party

Our busy busy weekend is over, and we're all alive if a little worse for wear.

On Thursday, I visited a friend, had dinner with my parents, and went to my LLL meeting. By the end of the day, I had spent 6 hours supervising Lily in non-child-proofed environments. Anyone who's been a parent to a 15-month-old can figure out how that went.

Friday was the Intuit children's Christmas party. After a very exhasperating drive all the way to Castledowns, we found ourselves in a room packed with Mr. and Mrs. Claus, a plethora of greasy finger foods, two children's performers from Australia, and a swarm of little people. Nick was thrilled with the performers and the craft tables while Lily took full advantage of all the space to run...and run...and run.

Saturday was our Christmas party at home. I've never seen so many people in our home. I think we counted something like 20 adults plus 7 children and 2 tiny babies. Despite the very full state of our home and the ongoing battles between Nicholas and Preston, the evening was a whole lot of fun. We were able to share in a great evening with a bunch of friends and we even found out about a new baby on the way.

And then on Sunday we went to...yet another Christmas party! This one was out at the community hall where my parents live. It's been decided that since I lived there for 12 years I'm an honourary community member. Liam and I were in charge of the craft and toy area as well as the singing of the Christmas carols. We only lost one toy to a minor casualty (which Liam may be able to repair) and the singing was greatly aided by our Piano Lady (I'm afraid I never actually found out her name). Liam's voice gave out on the second last song, which was quite entertaining but didn't keep his little groupies from hovering. Yes, Liam had teenage girls for groupies. They looked quite disappointed when I told them we lived in Millwoods.

The unfortunate incident of the evening happened shortly before we left for home. Lily was standing up on a riser type thing and took a head-first tumble off of it onto the hard tile floor. She had a giant blue indent on her head instantly and spent a while screaming both because it hurt and because her idiot mother kept trying to put cold compresses on it. I must admit that I was close to tears at one point. It looked so nasty and it's the first real injury she's ever had. I did comfort myself with the thought that by this age Nicholas had taken at least a dozen spills of this size. Today, she's got a big blue splotch on her forehead but I'm very happy to say that it's not nearly as nasty as I thought it would be.

So now we've got two weeks left until Christmas and no more Christmas parties planned. Whew! I've got a few more items to shop for and a whole bunch of things to wrap. Oh, and one gift to mail out to my brother and his family once I return to Winners so they can remove the security tag which was left on Trina's outfit. I'm looking forward to a semi-quiet week before we jump into Christmas concerts and Christmas break!

Le sigh

It's been 18 days and 5 hours since I've had a coffee. Give or take a few minutes. Somehow I'm still alive, though the week-long headache at the beginning tried to prove me otherwise.

I'd been wondering as of late if drinking coffee was at least in part leading to my digestive woes and it turns out that I was right. Damnit. I've been feeling gobs better and my energy level is pretty much back where it should be. It's actually kind of funny that the drink I was guzzling to perk me up was really wearing me out in the big picture.

So now, I'm mostly back to normal. In an effort to get all the way back there I went to see a Naturopathic Doctor yesterday ( Jackie Yurko for anyone interested). As per her thoughts, come January I'm going to go three weeks without dairy, wheat, refined sugar or red meat. After that I'll re-introduce the foods one at a time to see if they're causing me problems.

Part of me is excited to have some concrete plan on how to improve my health, but another part of me is freaking out. I love foods, especially my chocolate and breads. Food is a huge comfort for me (hence the inability to lose the 35 lbs I'm so angry at) and I know I'm going to have to change my way of coping. Ugh.

Someone hold my hand?