Author: sox

at least now i know it’s my dirt

This house wasn’t very clean when we moved in. It could have been worse, but it could have been a lot better. Our cleaning lady came today and gave the stove, countertops, bathroom and floors a good scrubbing. The stove especially looks a lot better.

The kitchen cupboards still need a good cleaning and some shelf paper (the shelves are pretty gross) and some of the upstairs closets need a clean, but it’s a lot better.

Now…we just need to start wading through what is our basement, but what looks like a storage locker gone wild.

just a tad embarrassing

I had yoga this morning with Amy, and before I walked down to the rec centre, I took Yoshi for a walk around the block. I dropped him at home, and then went on my way.

As we started the class, we were all commenting that it smelled pretty bad in the room. We were all doing the universal bum sniff on our babies, checking for poop. We figured maybe one of the babies had gas. I did wonder if it was one of the mums not owning up, but whatever. I’d probably do the same thing in their position.

It wasn’t going away, and one of the mums mentioned that the bathroom right behind the room we were in had a really rank diaper in the garbage, and perhaps it was wafting in.

We continued, occasionally commenting about the smell.

Amy started to really fuss so I decided to nurse her. I went over to a couch to sit down, and my stroller was parked right in front of the couch. As I was zoning out I happened to glance in the bottom of the stroller. And saw the white bag. Filled with dog shit. That I had forgotten to throw in the garbage.

I briefly wondered if I could get it out of there with no one knowing, but I decided to own up. My face was red as a beet, but we all got a good laugh.

nothing that a little Christmas music won’t fix

So yesterday wasn’t about Elliot, it was more about me. I woke up feeling terrible (managed to catch whatever the kids had), and Greg ended up staying home from work to take care of the kids. I was able to sleep for about three hours during the day, and laid low for most of the rest of it. Thank goodness for caring husbands with flexible jobs.

I’m feeling much better physically today, but woke up still feeling a bit blue. But I just spent the last hour hanging out with Amy and listening to Christmas music. My house may not look anything like Christmas, but it sounds like it! It improved my mood.

Greg and Elliot put the outside lights up yesterday, and I hope we can get a tree up in the next few days.

I unfortunately missed my office Christmas party last night due to being sick, which was disappointing. But hopefully this means I won’t be sick at Christmas.

tomorrow’s going to be a bit more about elliot

Had another so-so day today. Didn’t help that Amy had diarrhea three times. Thankfully she’s still in diapers. Elliot watched about four hours of TV today…that’s basically how we got through the day. I’m so tired that I’m wondering if I’m coming down with whatever bug the kids have.

But I still went out for ladies night. It was just me and K, but it was nice to be out of the house, away from kids, away from all the unpacking, and with a good friend.

I realized that Elliot is probably going through a lot of emotions too, and I’m really not giving him the time he deserves. So tomorrow I’m going to try to focus on him a bit (no, a lot) more. Screw the house.

Now I’m off to bed. Tomorrow’s a new day.

some days i can cut him some slack, some days i can’t

It wasn’t a great day. I just didn’t seem to have any patience with Elliot, and that makes me feel crappy. Sure we’ve just moved, sure I’m feeling emotional about that, sure our house is a bit of a disaster, sure I’m tired, but it’s no excuse. I wish I could parent to my full abilities all the time. But in the moment, it doesn’t happen. Today I just felt angry whenever he cried, stalled, whined, didn’t listen, etc. And lately I feel like every second sentence is of the form: “If you keep [insert behaviour I don’t like], [insert consequence] will happen.”

And as I write this, he’s crying as Greg tries to get through the bedtime routine. I feel like crying myself.

This no napping thing isn’t helping, but when he naps he’s up until 9:30 or 10:00, which does NOT work for me.

Tonight I’m supposed to go for my run, but it’s the last thing I feel like doing.

lox-flavoured cream cheese, ham and dijonnaise

I purposely didn’t blog yesterday because I’m OCD enough that I thought it might lead into a whole how-long-can-I-keep-this-daily-posting-going thing, which would just stress me out. I even googled “world record blogging”, which wasn’t too helpful, but I was curious.

However, I actually enjoyed posting every day (except the one time I forgot and had to get out of my warm bed), so I’m going to try to post more often. I’ve discovered that I can usually come up with something to say, and this move has certainly provided some content ideas. Plus, three of my readers have voiced how they will miss my daily posts, and since that’s probably half my readership, I may as well listen to them. Although I’ll have to ask them again in a month if they’d still miss me if I disappeared into the ether.

So…on with today’s post. Today I took Yoshi for a neighbourhood walk with Amy in the backpack. I wanted to check out Highrock Park (also referred to as Cairn Park).

My first nice surprise was how warm it was out. The thermometer outside our house read a balmy 17 degrees. I actually took of my jacket before I even left the house.

My second nice surprise was the park. Wow, Esquimalt is good to it’s dog-owning residents. Highrock is an off-leash park, and it was beautiful. It’s small (just under 12 acres), but there is a path to the top of a hill (elevation about 235 feet) that provides a 360 degree view of Greater Victoria. The link above provides some pictures that give you some idea of the view.

Most of the paths are paved, so very stroller-friendly, but there are lots of side paths with little rock outcrops that Elliot will have lots of climbing over. And there’s a big open field as well.

My third nice surprise was how close the park is to the house. I had walked to an entrance that was about a kilometre from the house, but as I explored the park I realized there were multiple entrances, one that is just a couple of blocks from our house.

I’m thinking I won’t miss Macaulay Point quite as much as I thought I would.

Oh, and the title of this post has nothing to do with the content. It’s just the ingredients to a bagel sandwich that I made for Greg tonight for dinner. We walked down to “town” tonight to watch the Esquimalt Christmas parade, so we did sandwiches for dinner. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I made his.

i’m writing this on my knees

There could be all sorts of titles for this blog post:

– then there’s the unpacking
– thank god i don’t have to post every day any more
– i need a light over my kitchen sink
– i need more drawers in my kitchen
– i need a bigger fridge
– it’s a lot quieter than Lampson street

You get the picture. I chose the one above because that’s my excuse for keeping this short. My 37-year-old knees won’t take a long post. I could also give a bunch of other excuses for keeping this short, but I won’t.

We slept in the new house last night for the first time, on clean sheets (sometimes I am on the ball). Amy was here too, and Elliot was still at Gramma’s. We all slept well, but the night went by too quickly. We needed some more down time!

I had an easier day today because I had Amy so I couldn’t do a lot, but Greg worked like a dog for about…well, 12 hours and counting, as he’s still at it.

One highlight of the day was our next door neighbors coming over to deliver some fresh-baked cookies and to welcome us. That’s never happened to me, and I almost started crying right in front of them. Because this house doesn’t feel like our home yet, and it won’t for a while, but if things like that keep happening then it won’t take long!

The other highlight was when I went to phone to order pizza. There was a message from a friend, offering us a home-cooked meal. All we had to do was go get it. Butter chicken and rice, and oh, was it ever good. We were so thankful. Again with the “this doesn’t feel like home” theme, the home cooking was such a better option than pizza. It was our first family dinner in the new house, and it felt special.

I said goodbye to the old house today with tears in my eyes. I went through each empty room and paused in the office (which was Elliot’s first room) and the kids’ room. Such a lot of wonderful memories. I had another pang of sadness as I was putting Elliot to bed tonight, thinking of all the times I’ve put him to bed in the old house. I know I will feel more at home soon, I go through this with every move, but it’s hard for right now.

I’m signing off. My knees hurt and there is a freakin’ mess waiting for me to wade through.

Here’s to a new beginning…a fitting end for my final NaBloPoMo post.

moving day

The movers are coming in 2.5 hours. I packed my tea thinking that I wouldn’t want a cup this morning, but I’m regretting it. A trip to Serious Coffee might be in order.

Amy woke up for a bit but is now back asleep, so we may be able to get some stuff done this morning.

My back is very sore and stiff and I’m wishing I had a better capacity for remembering my yoga poses. Although I’m not sure I’d take the time to do them this morning, even if I did remember them. I have a massage booked for Tuesday night, so I’ll get fixed up then.

I’m hoping we have a network connection tomorrow, because it’d really suck to miss the last day of NaBloPoMo because of technical difficulties. We’re leaching off of someone else’s connection this morning.

Over and out.

a bunch of lasts

A couple of nights ago Greg asked me if it felt weird that there were all sorts of things that were happening for the last time in this house, like the last time Elliot will sleep here (he’s going to Gramma’s tonight) and the last time the kids will sleep in the same room.

I hadn’t been thinking about it (my mind can only hold so many things), but now I have. It’s not just the house, too, it’s the things we do from or to the house. Like driving home along the “bump-bump” road, or walking to Macaulay Point.

Moving has always been a depressing time for me, as I say goodbye to all that is familiar and comfortable and say hello to, well, someone else’s house. At least I have recognized this about myself and can prepare for it. It doesn’t usually last very long, and I’m wondering if this time around, with two kids and Christmas to look forward to, if it’ll be a bit easier.

parenting two kids

Yesterday wasn’t my best day as a mother. I’m going to blame the fact that we’re moving in two days and I was trying to get stuff done while caring for two kids. This was frustrating me, and I took it out on the kids a couple of times. Well, let’s be honest here, I took it out on Elliot. Although Amy got a piece of it when I dropped a hard plastic toy on her head while I was trying to stop Elliot from pulling said toy away from her.

Anyway, the day is over, we survived and today’s going much better. Gramma is here so I was able to go to preschool with Elliot, sans Amy, which was nice for Elliot and me. Then we did a couple of errands and it was so easy just having one child.

Up until now, parenting two kids has been busy, but not very difficult from a how-to-handle-this perspective. Amy hasn’t been moving, and Elliot’s been pretty amazing with her. But now Amy is starting to get into things. She’s grabby, she pulls hair, she takes toys, and she (heaven forbid) touches Elliot. I’m already finding it difficult to mediate, and she isn’t even crawling yet. Yes, she’s too young to understand, but I don’t want her to wreak havoc on Elliot’s life.

I was thinking it’d be easier once they have two rooms, but that will only work if Elliot plays in his room on his own while Amy and I hang out in her room. That’s not a lot of fun for Elliot. Although I think I will instate the rule that toys he doesn’t want Amy to play with should stay in his room, and I can help ensure Amy doesn’t get into them.

As with everything so far, I supposed I’ll adapt to the upcoming changes. It’s never going to stop, this need to adapt. Not for a long time, anyway!