Wait a minute Mr. Postman

There seems to be an alarming rate of illiteracy among the mail delivery people that service our neighbourhood. Like most moms, I have a note posted on my door. It reads, "please do not ring the bell or knock... Baby sleeping.

Perhaps it should read, "make any noise and I'll castrate you", for all the respect my little plea is getting these days. And yes, it should be noted the all the offenders are male. Because no self-respecting female would incur the wrath of a mother whose baby was awoken by their inability to follow instructions.

USPS, FedEx, UPS... All the biggies are hiring idiots that must have flunked out of kindergarten, because two days is a row, Mattias has been woken early by their stupidity. My adorable son usually takes a 3 hour nap in the afternoon. Which he needs, or else he turns into something decidedly... Less adorable.

It's actually not the bell itself that wakes him up, but our dog's reaction to the bell. She sounds the alarm like nobody's business, and while I appreciate that in most cases, this is not one of them.

I came very close to chasing the mailman down today to kick him in the... Errr, give him a piece of what is left of my mind, but he was already in his truck and starting to drive away. The thought of running after his truck crossed my mind, but this neighbourhood is just not ready for that kind of crazy.

The only non-offending company is a little rinky-dink delivery service that sometimes brings me my Amazon shipments. He never rings the bell. The first time he ever delivered a package, I was sitting in my front room and saw through the window that he actually took the time to read my note and follow the instructions. I figure if he can do it, why can't the rest of them?

When I was recounting the story to my next-door neighbour, and I told her the part about chasing after the mailman, she told me, "I would have liked to see that."

She might just get her wish, if the illiteraci keep it up.

Mattias-isms... the weird ones

When we decided that Fred would only speak to our kids in Portuguese, many people were concerned that it would delay our kids, language-wise.  The answer was a resounding "no", seeing how Elise said her first word at the age of 7 months and never looked back.  I mean, the girl spoke in complete sentences before she turned two.

She has not stopped talking since.

Now with Mattias, it's been different.  He also said his first word at the age of 7 months, but we noticed he was more than happy to just point at things and grunt.  We chalked this up to the fact that; a) he is a guy, and b) his big sister makes up for his apparent mute-ness.

But lately all that has changed and he now talks up a storm.  Except we have no idea what the crap he is saying because the little man has his own language and apparently I am the lone translator.  Here are a couple of his gems:

agua-wa - water

Poom - shoes

Glngh-glngh (very hard to write phonetically) - Elise (no, I don't know why)

Baba - iPad

Apoom - fork

Acune - music. 

Pa - truck

Begungh - bird

Gungh -  Any number of letter of the alphabet.  When I read books with either of these, he'll point to the letter or number and say, "Gungh!"  For every one.  The funny thing is when he watches Wheel of Fortune with Elise (she loves that show), he will actually yell out letters, "Ah!", "Ohh!", "Eeee!", "Mmmm!"  Then he claps for himself.

I love this boy!

Google is my friend

What do you do when the child-lock engages on your back door on the driver side and you are not able to close the door. And it's edging ever closer to bedtime and you have your two kids in the backseat?

You do your best with your limited knowledge and car keys.

And what do you do when you've exhausted all your knowledge and you still can't fix it?

You call your husband who is in Vegas.

And what do you do when your husband is unable to help you from the state of Nevada?

You go into the store and find the nearest warm-blooded male who looks like he might have a clue.

And what do you when he can't fix it, and visions of camping out in the parking lot start to look like a reality?

You call your husband back and ask him to google "how to fix a stuck child lock". Then rejoice and thank God for google and people who have enough time on their hands to post such quandaries to the world-wide-web-information-super-highway when he finds the answer and it works.

I love google.

Happy Easter in pictures

Egg hunting and looking cool doing it

She's pretty cool too...

And pose!



Mattias was a big fan of throwing eggs



A big fan

Make that a HUGE fan

We have about 10 more pictures like this

Easter cuties!

Super cool Easter cuties!

 

Love them





Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter too!

All God's creatures

The list of bugs that I can tolerate is very short. I do understand that there are some bugs out there that have some purpose in this world and I'm fine with that. The moment they step one of their creepy little legs in my house though, all bets are off and I will squish or flush their buggy asses faster than you can say RAID.

The only bug that gets a pardon is the ladybug, they get a one way ticket outside instead of the business side of my shoe.

Regardless of any good qualities they may have, I hate them all; spiders, wasps, cockroaches and weird-ass beetles that I have to google just to figure out what they are.

But the bugs that win the award for "biggest jerks" are mosquitoes and ticks. Politicians too, for that matter. I cannot abide by something that lives off the lifeblood of another and offers nothing in return.

My daughter, however, loves all these nasties and more. If I am going to dispose of a creepy-crawly unfortunate enough to be found crawling inside my house, I usually have to pretend to put it outside first before I dispatch it into a watery grave. I don't return it to the wild lest it crawl right back inside.

Why the charade? Because my daughter has an extremely sweet and soft heart. She loves these bugs as if they were her friends, or worse; her own offspring. I don't want her to think her mother is a horrible person... she'll decide that soon enough when she is a teenager.

Remember this post? When she was befriending the flies that had gotten inside our house to the point of giving them names? And then she would plead with me to not kill "Sally"? Well, it happened again, this time with a significantly more vile creature.

We brought the kids home from playing in the backyard of a friend's house the other night. As I was taking Elise upstairs for her bath, she complained that "something was crawling on her", then she shrieked and batted at her cheek. The offending bug was thrown to the ground.

I took a look and my blood ran cold. I scooped it up in a baby food jar for a closer look and my fears were confirmed... it was a TICK.

Of all the nastiness on this earth, I don't think I hate anything as much as I hate the tick. I had a run-in with them before that still makes me shudder. I kept it in the jar so I could google it's ass and spent the rest of the night certain that our house was now infested with them.

The next morning I come downstairs to find Elise holding the jar and talking to her new friend, "Tina". She wanted to keep her new friend and "feed her and give her water". Ha... fat chance.

Now granted, she does not know how awful ticks are because I chose not to disclose their modus operandi. And thankfully, the tick never bit her.

But this befriending of the nasties has got to stop lest we end up run out of the neighbourhood for having some freak show menagerie.

"Tina"

18

I'm not going to lie. The past three months with Mattias have been... not great. Someone took my sweet lovable little man and replaced him with a very angry midget. A very angry teething midget. Who never actually got any teeth in, so I'm wondering what all the anger was for.

It's a good thing that even his temper tantrums are cute, because I was privy to one on a daily basis. Some days there were 9:00, 11:00, 12:30, 4:00, 6:00, and 8:00 showings. All that was missing was the popcorn.

It would go like this; Mattias would believe that some gross misjustice had taken place (diaper needed to be changed, he ate all his snack, the dog looked at him), so he would run screaming towards a wall. Stop. Turn around and look at me while he hit the wall and said, "UH". Then he would stomp his feet, mutter "UH" a few more times, then run screaming towards another wall to start the whole process over again. This would last about a minute, and then something bright and shiny would distract him.

All the while I would firmly tell him no, then ignore him, holding back crazed giggles that threatened to erupt every time the angry midget appeared.

I had no idea what was causing this behavior. He had just gotten over croup, and his gums were very swollen, but nothing ever broke through. But quickly as it started, the tantrums have pretty much dissipated and I have my sweet boy back.

At 18 months he still only has 6 teeth. He's just now fitting into the proper size of clothes (when he was 12 months, he was wearing 6/9m clothing, at 15 months he wore 12m). He looks like such a little man now.

He takes one 3-4 hour nap in the afternoon, nurses twice a day and sleeps through the night (oh dear LORD it was about time). He makes us laugh with his silly antics and love for dance. He loves to sing "jingle bells" and "jingle bell rock", and can actually sing the melody, just substituting la-la-las for the actual words. I sense the music is strong in this one.

He has a language all his own, but says; hi, ola, Mama, Papa, Gramma, carro (car in Portuguese), ao-ao-ao (what a dog says in Portuguese) bela-ba (belly button), agua-wa (a hybrid of water in Portuguese and English), and begungh (bird in ?).

He screams with delight when his Papa comes home. Or if you ask him if he wants to go outside. Or listen to music. Or have a bath. Or if he wants his chucha (pronounced shusha - it means pacifier in Portuguese). He does everything with enthusiasm.

Especially eating. It's hard to believe that a year ago, he wasn't gaining any weight and pretty much refused to eat. He's making up for it now. The boy can put away 4 bowls of steel cut oats in the morning. Then he wants to help himself from my bowl. He'll try anything and recently stole a spring roll off of my plate.

I miss my baby, but I dearly love this little boy who is now running around. Now if he would just stop for a moment and let me snuggle him.

Mr. Independent... the look on his face is him protesting Elise's help



Already a great little soccer player




His teeth... all 6 of them

Someone needs a haircut


Love

Prayers for the Schuhmacher Family

I want you to meet Meri, probably one of the sweetest, kindest, most giving souls I have ever been blessed to meet. I count her as one of my best friends, even though I have only met her once.

You see, she lives in my computer, and we met because our children have type 1 diabetes. My child. Her children. Yes, I said, children. Three out of four of her boys have t1.

She is a mentor to me because her first was diagnosed as a baby; only 8 months old. During the next 13 years, she would be handed not only two more t1 diagnoses, but a melanoma diagnosis for her husband, Ryan, three years ago. He underwent surgery and chemo. They thought they had beat it.

Three years later, cancer has again reared it's ugly head... this time Ryan has 6 tumors in his brain, and multiple tumors in his lungs and abdomen.

My heart aches so bad for this family, and I spent a good part of yesterday crying when I heard the news (those of you who know me know that crying isn't really my thing). I love Meri as the sister I never had. She is simply an amazing woman who is married to an amazing man. I liked Ryan from the moment I met him. These two have been together for 19 years, and they truly make each other whole.

Will you please join me in praying for this sweet family? March 4th has been set aside as a day of fasting and prayer for the Schuhmacher family. You can read Meri's story here. And for updates, join the facebook page that has been set up for the family.

Please tell all you know to lift this family up. Let's let heaven hear our voices loud and clear.

Only the b(r)est for my baby

When a child is born, we only want the best for them... best hospital, best doctor, best baby toys and all the other accouterments that babies need.

As they get older, our infatuation for the best continues; the best food, the best friends, the best school, the best teachers, the best college, the best spouse, the best life.

I think our fanatical desire for the best is natural. We love these little creatures to bits and would do anything for them. What puzzles me is why breast-feeding is considered best, but only up to a certain point.

When I went to the doctor a few months ago, she wanted to prescribe a certain medication. When I asked if it was okay to take if I was breast-feeding, the doc furrowed her brow and we had the following conversation:

She: how old is your son?

Me: 14 months (which he was at the time).

She: And you're still nursing him? Any particular reason?

Me: Because it's good for him and for now I don't see a reason to stop.

She: Well, if you want to take this medication, you'll have to stop. Maybe now is a good time to tell your son no more.

In the end, I opted NOT to take the medication, and the whole exchange still strikes me as bizarre (from a doctor, no less). I often get the same reaction from other people when the topic comes up:

You're STILL breastfeeding him? WHY?

Why not?

And why not, indeed? Over and over it has been proven that breast milk is THE best thing for a baby. It protects against infections and contains all the nutrients that babies need to thrive. Neither of my kids have ever had an ear infection, and seem to avoid a lot of the illnesses that are floating around.

For Moms, breastfeeding can reduce the risk of breast and ovarian cancer and also provides a great way for mothers to bond with their babies.

So why is it so weird that I support extended nursing? I nursed Elise until she was 2 1/2. Even though at 12 months, when she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, I was told to stop nursing her. I didn't, and never noticed an adverse affect on her blood sugar.

I plan on nursing Mattias for a few more months. When there are only pluses and no negatives, why shouldn't I?

I get it... breast-feeding is not easy sometimes. I remember that in the beginning, every time Elise would latch on it would hurt so much I felt like throwing up. With Mattias, he staged a nursing strike at 4 months. I had to pump and syringe feed him at times because he refused to take a bottle. We were going through a bunch of other things during that time and it. was. HELL. I don't think I've ever been so stressed out in my life.

But I still knew it was best, so I stuck with it. And I think we proved who the most stubborn one of all is, right?

I love this part of being a Mom. I love the bonding that comes from those quiet moments where both of us are still. I enjoy looking at his sweet face; losing myself in his beautiful blue eyes, stroking his soft, silky hair and just reveling in that wonderful baby smell that still surrounds him.

This passage of time is so fleeting that I am in no rush to get through it.

Getting bigger (and cuter) every day.

Bringing the Buzz... Kroger Comforts for Baby wipes!

Over the next couple of posts, I am going to be writing some reviews of products that I got to try by being a Bzzagent. To read more about Bzzagent, click here. These are my own opinions, I did not have to say anything nice about them if I didn't want to.

They're aren't too many things in this life that I'm picky about (okay, you can stop laughing now please), but one thing I tend to be choosy about is what I use to clean my baby's bum.

I stay away unnecessary scents or other harmful additives that are harsh on skin. I'm hoping Mattias hasn't inherited any of the skin issues that go along with being a redhead, and I'll do my best not to contribute to the problem.

I was very pleased with Kroger Comforts for Baby wipes. The were thick and soft; almost cloth-like, and had just the right amount of moisture. And I like that they don't have alcohol or any other chemicals in them.

In fact, I like them better than Pampers; which have way too much moisture in them and aren't as thick. The Kroger wipes are comparable to the Huggies brand, except in price.

When I buy wipes, I look for a price point of .015 or less per wipe, and the big box of Kroger Comforts brand usually sell for that without a coupon. If you're a Kroger Plus member, you can usually load coupons for the Comforts brand into your shopping card on the Kroger website.

I also like to buy their smaller packs to throw in the diaper bag... at about $1.25 for a pack of 72, it's much cheaper than either Pampers or Huggies.

I give the Kroger Comforts for Baby wipes 5 out of 5 dirty tushies!

She's going to Bollywood

My older brother (whom Elise has dubbed "Uncle Turkey") goes to India quite a bit. He's a musician, and he studies there. When we were in Vancouver in 2010, he had just returned and bought with him some of the cutest outfits for Elise. Unfortunately, they were a bit too big for her at the time, but fit quite nicely now.

Here's Elise striking some poses in what she calls her "Chinese Indian Princess Outfit". I'm scratching my head over the Chinese part...

When she was on the phone with my Mom (while wearing this outfit), she told her, "I wish you could see me, I look fabulous!"

She does, doesn't she?