Six Of One, Half Dozen Of The Other
Date: Thursday May 15, 2008Posted in: Blogging, Family, Random thoughts, Sundry, domestic bliss
I did not mean to leave the poop post up for so long, but what do you know? My life has been busy outside of the Internet. The long weekend is coming and I have a lot to do to prepare for company. I’m also working (DEADLINES!), had Boot Camp last night, and am trying to get outside as much as possible. SUMMER HAS FINALLY ARRIVED!
The lovely Ali (Who also has a Miss Emily) from Cheaper Than Therapy tagged me with a “six random things” meme. I normally shun the memes (I have done a TON of them!), but I was having a hard time deciding how to follow in the footsteps of poop. Miss Ali to the rescue!
Here goes:
1. I love to bake. I really, really do. Honey loves chocolate. He really, really does. I bake copious amounts of sweet treats for him. For many women trying to keep their weight in check this might be a problem, but it’s not for me. I prefer cookie dough/brownie batter to the finished product, and while fresh baking is lovely, I can take it or leave it. Come the next day? I like it even less.
Chips, however, are a totally different story…
2. My middle name is Dian, which is Diane without the “e”. I share it with my Momma. For the first twenty-eight or so years of my life, I thought it was pronounced “Dee-Anne”. BOY WAS I SHOCKED when I found out that was not the case. How smart am I? I did not even know MY OWN NAME. And they let me teach University graduates…
3. I don’t like beer. It tastes like urine. Not that I have ever tasted urine, but beer is what I imagine urine would taste like.
4. Even though I am Canadian, I have to consciously add the letter “u” to words such as “favourite”, “colour”, and “favour”. I hesitate every. single. time. I would ditch it, but us Canadians are a proud folk. Plus, my fellow Canucks would probably hold a lynching. That would suck.
5. As for the whole pound vs. kilo, inches vs. centimetres, Celsius vs. Fahrenheit, mile vs. kilometre differences, I am a mixed bag. I don’t get Fahrenheit. At all. Zero is Freezing, 100 is boiling. Celsuis makes sense to me. As does the kilometre. When it comes to weight, however, kilos confuse me. I need to Google the conversion every time. I know my weight in pounds, but have NO IDEA what I weigh in kilos. I also uses inches instead of centimetres when it comes to measuring. Except when giving birth. I am pretty happy that we do not dilate ten inches. COULD YOU IMAGINE?
6. Speaking of child birth…Before ever having kids, I was convinced that I wanted FOUR of them. After having Nathan a mere twenty months after Graham, I was sure that TWO was the magic number. A little over a year later, Matthew and I knew we wanted one more. Just one. For a total of three. I think it is the perfect number for us right now. Together we have created three perfectly healthy, happy, and gorgeous children. See?
If we ever do want a fourth, we can always adopt. I am DONE being pregnant. And in case you were wondering if an “oops” would ever happen, it is now medically impossible for us to get pregnant. Huzzah!
That’s six things. I am going to tag six people who I *think* would like to play. If not, no worries. I also think they are a pretty neat group of peeps. Check ‘em out.
Kami, Hannah, Kristabella, The Over Thinker, Hillary (with 2 l’s!) and Mrs. Wilson.
This weekend is a busy one. In laws and siblings and a day away, oh my! I doubt I will be posting, though stranger things have happened. Let me get an early start on wishing you a super May long weekend (in Canada, at least). Doing anything fun?
The photos I am posting have nothing to do with the subject matter. They are photos of wildflowers and blossoms in our yard that prove that spring has FINALLY arrived. Once you read what I am writing about, you will be so excited that I did not post photos of the subject matter that you just may want to kiss me. A hug will do just fine.
I am a regular girl. By “regular”, I do not mean that I am dull and boring (Though I truly am!) or that I watch shows such as The Hills, The Bachelor, or even The Gilmore Girls. I am sure they are all lovely, but there are only so many TV hours in a week, and I choose to spend them on The Office, LOST, Heroes and House (sometimes).
By “regular” I am referring to Bowel Movements, or BM’s as they were. I have them daily. Yes, I grace the porcelain throne every day (sometimes more than once) and do my “business”. Shut up. You do it too. I do mine in about twenty seconds flat, if you really want to know. Nothing changed when I was pregnant, either. Constipation is apparently a common side-effect of growing another human being in your uterus. But for me? Not a problem. I dumped daily. Yay!
Honey (who will cringe AND DIE when he reads this) is also regular. Daily pooping. Huzzah!
The boys? Yep. Regular. They are also funny in that when one decides they have to drop a load, they other gets the same urge. They are like dogs. They will be in separate bathrooms, doing their business. Then they both yell at the same time, “I’m DOOOOONE!”
See? Nothing to do with the subject matter. Hugs?
Miss Emily is a different creature altogether.
She eats the same balanced diet as the rest of us, but has an issue with the pooping. She has for as long as I can remember. When she was a baby we would actually hold her legs back (ala labour) and help her birth a poop. She had gotten all ladylike in her old age and will not be party to such nonsense.
She only poops once every two or three days. It takes a good day or so of working to get it out. She goes through spurts of bearing down, face all red, trying to squeeze it into being. I will ask her if she’s pooping, to which I get a solid, “NO!”
OH REALLY, EMILY? I AM PRETTY SURE YOU ARE PUSHING OUT A POO, WHAT WITH THE SQUATTING AND GRUNTING.
Finally, she will get it out. Usually in the bathtub. AWESOME. The dudes will start screaming and jumping ship. Good times, good times.
The log will be six inches long, and solid as a rock. It’s unbelievable, really.
See? NO PHOTOS OF POOP. You are welcome.
I do not know what to do to help this girl of mine. It is not that she doesn’t poop. Her poop is just hard and, um, HUGE. I have tried to give her apple juice, but she prefers water (my kids are not big juice drinkers). She loves cheese (mmmm…cheese…), but I have limited her access. My friend Karen recommended Activia yogurt, but Emily will only take a bite or two.
We find that when she is backed up, her appetite is almost non-existent. She’s FULL, and wants no more. I cannot figure out how to help her. I have been told I could try a suppository, but the thought of sticking a foreign object up her butt seems a little, I don’t know, violating.
If you have any less invasive tips, I would sure love to hear them.
Miss Emily will be most appreciative as well, I am sure.
We are having an extended-family dinner this weekend (and an anniversary next week!) and I was thinking I should look up some new cocktail recipes. And then, in my feed reader, a post from BlogHer titled “The Recipe For Summer Cocktails” appeared. Perfect.
On Sunday, Mother’s Day, I woke up, stretched, and looked out the window. It was dark. Gloomy. And raining.
This is not a common occurrence around here. We are actually at the north end of a desert that stretches from here to California. Yes, I have complained about SNOW, but in actuality, we do not get a lot of the white stuff. Especially compared to those who live in the prairies, and have to deal with snow up to the roof line.
I. Would. Die.
Our snow pack is almost non-existent and we are on very strict water restrictions.
We need the rain. I get that.
I, however, need the SUN. A cold and dreary day can put me in a funk in the skip of a heartbeat. But a sunny day? No grumpiness allowed. Or even POSSIBLE. Sun = Happy.
So my Mother’s Day started off on the wrong foot. Or wrong weather pattern. Whatever. I did not get breakfast in bed, but I did not expect as much. I am a woman who loves routine, and who loves her daily breakfast of oatmeal and a latte. Honey could have made it for me but he would likely bung it up. That would have thrown my entire day into a terrifying tailspin. I made my own breakfast to save us all from the aftermath of the drama.
After I ate, I was handed a card (That Honey MADE! With my stamping stuff! Creative…or frugal? YOU DECIDE.), and then he headed outside to “get my present”. Soon after, I was presented with some wildflowers from the hill behind our house, a “flower” that Graham had made at school, a gift certificate for a manicure and a pedicure (Woo!), and a postcard that G’s Kindergarten class had sent last week during their trip to the Post Office.
It reads, “Mommy, I love you like the Planet Earth“. Good thing he did not say I looked like the Planet Earth.
It was time to get ready for church and I was grumpy. I had visualized a warm, sunny day. I would wear a pretty pink skirt with a white top and white strappy heels. I would skip and frolic through the wildflowers (Go ahead and visualize it. I am. It’s pretty funny.). The hoopla about Mother’s Day makes it to be this grand event, with sunshine and tulips and leaping. Reality was nothing like the TV. Shocking, I know.
Instead of frolicking through the tulips, I thought I should “spring clean” my closet. Hence, my “fat day“. Bah. (Thanks, though, for your sweet comments and emails.)
Monday morning was more of the same. Grey, cold, and damp. I dislike that word, but not as much as I hate “moist“. Ewww.
Graham woke up with a hacking cough and a nose full of snot, to complement the snot pouring from his siblings’ noses. I kept him home from school, despite the fact that the dude was far more energetic than I have been in about ten years. I don’t like to infect other peoples’ children. By mid-morning the hacking had ceased so I took all three kids to the grocery store, which helped my mood. That is if by “helped” you mean “made me want to tear out my hair”.
Ahem.
(I’m exaggerating. The kids are always good, they just don’t. Stop. MOVING.)
I worked for couple of hours and got caught up on my contract work. I wanted desperately to give Honey a break from Daddy Daycare. Between Accounting work and Photography gigs, he has been pulling overtime. He needed a break. I also needed a break from the blasted weather. Turns out? We BOTH won.
The sun started to peek between some puffy white clouds and I thought a walk would be fun. Except I had all three kids to deal with. We tried to see if they could all fit in the jogging stroller.
Yeah, NOT SO MUCH.
We opted to go to the park at the lake instead. It was early afternoon and in direct sunlight, which is not the best for photos. I did not have my external flash with me, but I tried to do the best I could by manipulating the the metering and the built-in flash (Hmmm…a future Foto Friday post?).
Do you see that long line of drool hanging from her lip? BLASTED EYETEETH.
On the water.
On the monkey bars.
Climbing.
On top of the jungle gym.
While at boot camp last night I reflected (Between shouts of “Right Basic! Left Basic! Repeater Knee!“) on the pensive mood I had been in. Part of was due to the weather, yes, but then I counted backwards in my head. Every twenty-eight to thirty-five days my body does this cyclical thing, if you know what I am saying. It has been almost thirty-five days. The cycle is imminent. Talk about an Aha! moment.
I surveyed the women in my class. There are a wide array of shapes and body types that belong to the women who were jumping, kicking, and crunching right along with me. Every single one of them is beautiful because they have chosen to work hard to make their body the best that it can be.
Which is what both Matthew and I are doing, and what we want to teach all three of our kids to do. We feed them home-cooked meals, we exercise with them, we tell them all day long how beautiful they are. We want to teach them health, as well as balance, which includes the occasional ice cream cone on a sunny day.
I think we are on the right track.
Sk-rt had to pick a new name, and Kirtsy was the winner. Check out their new digs at http://kirtsy.com/. If you want to know the story behind the name change, The Bloggess covers it quite fabulously.
