71 days

So I woke up one day and discovered I was VERY pregnant. Up until quite recently, I really didn't have any symptoms, but lately heartburn has kicked in, I feel huge (to the point that I knock things over with my belly), and rolling over during the night is a big ordeal. On the plus side, the date for the c-section has been set so the countdown is on. 1705 hours until baby #3.

I have a bunch of posts I want to post, but instead, I think I'm heading to bed.  Sleep is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

And no, the dog doesn't sleep in bed with us. This was taken AFTER I was already ready for the day and had woken up Chelsea. Rather than getting ready, she climbed in with her lazy dad who also was supposed to be up for the day. Well, at least Gavin and I are morning people.

Just another day in paradise...

So it was a beautiful day on Sunday. Beautiful. I love going for walks, so we threw both kids into the bike stroller, laced our shoes and headed out for a walk. We walked all along the dike, checked out the bridges and then continued our walk to a small play structure at a local church. Yes, the church part is important to note.
So the kiddies were happily playing and Chris and I were lounging around, enjoying the sunshine, when Gavin comes up doing the pee-pee dance, declaring he has to pee. No problem.

(Just so that everything makes sense, I will confess that we have taught G to pee sitting down.)

Me - "Okay buddy, you can pee standing up."
Gavin - "Okay mommy, I pee," and he promptly starts peeing, pants on, the whole nine yards.
Me - "No!!! Gavin, no!!"
Gavin - "Mommy, I pee standing up."
Me - "Gah! Stop!!"

So now I try to pull down his pants so that he can finish. Seriously - why when he is pretty much drenched is beyond me, but hey I was caught up in the moment.

Okay - now here's my thoughts. How on earth do you teach a boy to pee standing up?? Without going into detail - I'll just say, it's so small! How do you aim? I was definitely not having much luck. By now, he's drenched, I'm being peed on, and Chris is dying of laughter.

Thankfully Chelsea, our fashionista, was wearing a summerdress with grey sweatpants underneath, so we were able to do a pantswap, but of course, I needed to snap a quick photo first!

Awe, the things that happen in front of the local church.

And on a totally different note - check out the beautiful rainbow roses from Bloom. They are a definite hit in our house!

Big 0-5 Celebration...

It was a big weekend this weekend. Chelsea looks forward to her birthday for about 6 months. This year she chose an owl theme. So we made some cute invitations, and decorated the school staffroom and a classroom and got ready to party.

 

 Oh, did I mention owl snacks? We made some cute rainbow cupcakes with sprinkles and owl tags for preschool (thanks Meghan for the tags), and big owl eye cupcakes for day care and the party and cutsie little cakepops for the party. I swear it would have taken me less time to make a 6 tier owl cake than to make the owl cakepops.

We started off with a family party at Grandma's house. Grandma knew C didn't like cake and made her a yummy rice krispie cake with chocolate ganache on top. YUM!

It was a beautiful day on Saturday and we totally could have just hung outside allllll day. So we played outside for a while and then headed in to do the craft. All 8 invited kids, with Gavin and Chelsea - what a great group of kids.

Paint pens and owl suncatchers made for a great craft!

The swinging ropes are always a huge hit!

Opening gifts. Chelsea was pretty overwhelmed!

Time to eat! Chelsea's request - cheese pizza, cheezies, carrots, cheese chips and orange crush. Everything was orange. Weirdo.

Happy birthday cupcake!

There will be a sappy "happy 5 years to my big girl" post coming soon.

True life.

Yes, that is indeed a picture of gitchies.

You see, there is just something about seeing little boy gitchies on the floor that makes me smile. I know, call me weird, whatever. It just makes me smile because chances are G ran from the bathroom giggling, knowing that he's naked when he shouldn't be. And chances are I chased him, just to pinch his little bum.

However, I do not get the same smile on my face when I walk into the bathroom and see a pair of boxers belonging to a 30 year old man. I wonder when gitchies on the floor stops being cute?

Oops

I've now reached that awkward stage in my pregnancy when I reach into the clean laundry, thinking I'm grabbing my son's t-shirt and I realize it's actually my comfy preggo underwear.

Good times.

Mama knows best.

Tuesday was just one of those days where nothing was really going right. I have a wicked sore throat and am not sleeping well at night, so I'm just plain exhausted. I was very much looking forward to an afternoon nap, but our schedule was a little off because I had to drop something off for someone at 1:30. Usually Gavin goes down for a nap at 1:00, so I didn't think this shift would be a big deal.

Well, when we got home, he absolutely refused to nap. He cried and cried and screamed and wouldn't stay in his bed at all, and he kept saying that he just wasn't tired. Well, Chelsea was downstairs quietly watching a movie, so I figured Gavin could just sit next to her and maybe I'd get a 20 minute power nap in.

Four minutes later...

Yeah, that's right Buddy - you weren't tired at all.

First movie experience

Chelsea's first movie she saw in a theatre was Tangled which she saw when she was 3 1/2 and since Gavin will be three in June, we thought he'd be old enough to enjoy a movie. Notice the "we thought". Okay, if you ask us, he actually didn't do too bad, but if you ask the lady in front of us, she might disagree.

You see... Gavin talks - a lot. A LOT. Constant commentary, questions and random thoughts. Personally, I love it, but that's because he's my boy and one of his favourite phrases right now is, "Mommy - you're my best friend. Mommy - you're my best."

Today, however, he said things like, "Look! Flower! Tree! Funny? I want off. I jump on. Can I sit with daddy? Chelsea? Chelsea share skittles? Can I have more juice? Funny animals! HAHAHAHA! Me be quiet? Why? Why no talking? Moustache! Funny bear. Cute bear. 1,2,3,4,5,6 bears! Me like popcorn. I sit here? I love movie. A, b, c, d, e, ... Movie theatre. Look! Sky. My shoe. My shoe off. Clouds! Mommy! My shoe on. Mommy shoe on? Kiss. Chelsea be good? Gavin shhh..."

Get my point?

Did not stop talking. Ah well, it was a great movie and the kids did have fun.

Spring Break

I love being at home. I love my bed, the sounds in my room, how well my kids sleep, the list goes on and on... But our kids have actually never spent the night in a hotel (with the exception of Chelsea, once, when she was just over a year) so we booked a room in Winnipeg. We even splurged and got the kids theme suite that comes equipped with bunk beds. They were pumped.

Here's the view from my angle. :P Hello baby #3.

Now, the idea behind staying in Winnipeg was to enjoy the hotel pool and waterslide, which we did, and then we were going to go to the park and zoo for the day. Last week was hot and sunny, but this week was cold and rainy and miserable, so we decided to hit up the Manitoba Museum. We even managed to meet up with some friends. Okay well, we met up with one of my friends and her 3 kids, but I don't think my kids and her kids even spoke to each other. However, they did co-exist nicely!

The highlight of the museum for these three? Oh a little slanted step in front of one of the displays. They loved playing on here while we waited for Chris and Chelsea to rejoin our group.

The highlight of the Winnipeg trip for me was hitting up 2 Salvation Army stores and 2 Value Villages. I got a ton of stuff for the camper and a few summer dresses for Chelsea and some mat clothes for me. We did learn a life lesson about sleeping in hotels though. ALWAYS ask for a non-poolside room. Our kids did not go to sleep until after 10 when the pool finally closed and then were up again at 8 because we could hear the kids in the pool area screaming already.

As much as I love being at my home, the kids had fun and I survived. We might do this again someday. :P

Numero Trois

I always look forward to that mid-pregnancy ultrasound. Now for comparison, the top is Chelsea...

And this one is Gavin. Yikes - bad quality.



 And now, may I present, the cutest little bambino yet, Baby#3. 

Okay so they all kinda look the same. The funniest thing was that when I went to the counter to get our pictures, they handed us this one.

We were "oohing" and "ahhing" until Chris said, "Umm... Is that what I think it is?" Now, go take a look at the above photo again. Do you see what we see? We handed it back to the receptionists and they all gasped. Remember, we found out it was a boy with Gavin so we have lots of pictures like the one below...

And we were fairly certain we saw boy bits a few times during the ultrasound with #3. However, when I showed the picture to one of my friends, she was quick to point out that what we thought was telling evidence, really could be his/her hand, if you look at the arm and elbow.

Okay, that makes sense, but I'm still pretty convinced it's a boy. Guess we still have 3 months to wait to find out for sure!

My truth.

The truth is I've been struggling a lot lately.

But these guys? 

 They keep me grounded. They help me believe in who I am and who I am supposed to be.

Loves.

24 weeks

Lately, I've been struggling. I am feeling HUGE. I've gained way more weight this pregnancy than I hoped to, even though I am eating ridiculously healthy. Like ridiculously healthy. I eat more veggies than anyone I know, but yes, do allow myself a burger and poutine once a week. ;) The only thing keeping me sane and grounded is the following mantra. "I can only control what I put in my mouth. I can't control what my body does with it."

Right?

Right.

Plus, I am building a healthy baby. I wouldn't risk the health of the baby for anything, so I am being very balanced and reasonable with my diet.

It's just hard to go from being the fittest I've ever been to feeling out of control in my body. I can't exercise like I want to because I damaged my back muscles during my last pregnancy and have to be careful to make sure that doesn't happen again. Plus, I'm exhausted. I know it's an excuse, but it's a tiredness that is impossible to explain. I walk a lot, but it's not the same.

So, yesterday I was 24 weeks. So I decided to take some pics to compare how I am now to how I was at the same time with Gavin. It was so nice to see that I am still smaller! I wore the same shorts, but don't have that shirt anymore. (The beige is Gavin, the grey is Baby #3)

So yup. I build big babies. Yup, I am due July 12. Yup, I'm positive it's not twins.

In the blink of an eye...

I know it sounds cliche, and I thought I was doing well, but it hit me that soon my baby girl will be going to Kindergarten. Now, I'm not nervous about Kindergarten, as I do work half days and I am away from her for half the day now, but do you know what comes after Kindergarten?? Grade 1. A whole day away from me. A whole day away from me that when I ask her, "So how was today? What did you do?" her answer will be "not much" or "nothing". A whole day during which I won't know what goes on. A whole day in which she'll be free to spin tales about having 5 birds as pets. That concept breaks my heart. I know she'll love school and I know she'll do well, but I want to be there.

Good thing it's a whole year away.

But wait. Wasn't it just yesterday that I laid my eyes on this sweet, innocent, beautiful baby girl?

Oh wait - this was yesterday. My big girl all grown up. My sweet, innocent, beautiful baby girl.

 I swear. I'm going to blink a few more times and it'll be her graduation.

My sweet, innocent, beautiful baby girl. Love you to bits, baby!

There may have been crickets chirping...

I just finished parent-teacher interviews. Now, I don't usually blog about my students for confidentiality and all that jazz, but this was just too funny not to pass along.
I work on reading with a grade one student every day. On Thursday, I laid out three books - "Budgies," "Cats," and "Mice" and told the child to pick a book. He got all excited and chose "Budgies" because he had 5 budgies at home. He went on and on, talking about the budiges and their names and the colours and the tricks that they do and their cage and where their cage is in their house and how if you open the door, the budgies will fly out and on... and on... and on... Literally over 5 minutes, telling me ALL ABOUT HIS BUDGIES. Get my point? The boy liked his budgies.

So fast forward to parent-teacher interviews. I sit down and I'm telling the dad all about this child's success and I say, "So, did *Walter* tell you about his new book today? It's about budgies and he was very excited because of the budgies you have at home."

Dad - "Uh... we don't have any birds."

Me - *Blink, blink.*
         "Uhh... oh. *Walter* was telling me all about them."

Dad - "Nope. No birds. We talked once about maybe getting one..." We both stare at *Walter.*

Poor *Walter* was 87 shades of red. Busted, my friend, busted because of budgies.

___

Just a warning parents - you NEVER know what stories your kids are coming up with at school!

M'boy lost his 'noids.

I know this blog has been awfully quiet lately, but we have been busy. On Thursday, G finally had his surgery for his adenoids. Hopefully this will be the solution to all his breathing and speech problems. We were at the wonderful Children's Hospital again. We tried to make him feel better about wearing what he called "a dress" by telling him it was a really cool costume. That made it acceptable to him. The nurses laughed when we called the name bracelet "a watch" but again, whatever made him happy! He was actually really mad that his monkeys both needed watches too, but eventually he got over it.

As we were waiting to go into the operating room, we distracted him by getting him to push his monkeys around in a shopping cart. Things were fine until it turned into a high speed chase and he wound up giving himself a bloody nose. You know, that's a proud parenting moment - as the surgeon enters the room to discuss the impending surgery, I'm frantically dabbing his nose, trying to get the bloodflow to stop. Sigh.

Last year when G had his surgery, he was screaming as they took him from me, he screamed as he went under and screamed for 2.5 hours when he woke up. I was soooo worried about that part of it.This time, I talked to the anesthetist and we decided to try putting him out with a different drug. He happily wheeled his shopping-cart-o-monkeys into the OR and that was it.

When they called us from the waiting room into the Recovery Room, I was happy that I couldn't hear him screaming from the hallway. The nurses kept saying how bad his recovery was because he was crying and kicking, but Chris and I just kept reassuring them that this was nothing compared to last time. He only cried for about 45 minutes and I didn't walk out of there with bruises, so thanks for all your prayers!

The next few hours were spent giving him lots of cuddles and trying to convince him to drink some juice. His main complaint was about the IV. Like mama, like baby.

The night was rough. He still had a local on his mouth and throat and so that wasn't bothering him, but he kept crying about his IV and the fact that he had to stay in a crib. We got maybe 5 hours sleep in total.

However, the next morning, he was ready to go home. It wasn't until later when the local wore off that things became fun.   For the first 5 days at home, all he did was wander around whining and crying. He only drank and didn't eat. It was awful. It's been a week tomorrow and he's finally acting like himself and eating again. Yay.

Interesting fact  #1 - One of the side effects of adenoid surgery is awful, foul, unrelentless bad breath for 7 - 10 days.

Interesting fact #2 - being pregnant can heighten your sense of smell.

Now, if these two interesting facts happen to collide, for example a young boy who has his adenoids taken out and his mother happens to be 22 weeks pregnant, it can present an awkward situation. Every time I try to cuddle him, I wind up gagging. Now I know you might think I'm exaggerating, but it's true. Chris had him in the van two days ago and left him in there for a few minutes while he ran an errand and when he opened the van door, even Chris complained about the smell in the van. Here's hoping that clears up soon because it is unbearable!!

Seriously though, thanks for thinking of us, friends. I really appreciated all the texts and messages. It went really well, and here's hoping we are done with surgeries for a long, long time!