Author: sox

makes me re-think the 14 hour trip to NZ

Amy and I are now in Ottawa visiting my sister for a few days. The plane trip out was a bit harder than expected, but we made it in one piece.

I’ve travelled with Elliot several times, but always with Greg. This was my first time travelling on my own with a child.

The first hurdle was the security check in Victoria. I knew that Amy would have to be out of the stroller, what I didn’t remember is the stroller had to be collapsed. The security guard offered to help me, but I stupidly tried to collapse the stroller while holding on to Amy. Yes, she has head control, but she doesn’t have full torso control yet. I had to lower my arm on her back a bit, and I leaned over a bit too far. She fell backwards and narrowly missed crashing her head on the conveyer belt. She wasn’t hurt, but it sure scared her, and she started crying. Of course there were dozens of people milling about, and they all witnessed me almost drop my child.

The next hurdle was getting settled in my seat and getting the stuff I needed out of my backpack. It wasn’t too bad, but I had to sit Amy in the seat next to me and keep one hand on her to make sure she didn’t fall.

The Victoria-Toronto leg was four and a half hours, and it passed relatively uneventfully. Amy had a couple of short naps, cried a bit at times, cried a lot when we landed, and then was all smiles when we stopped.

The next (and biggest) hurdle was getting to my Ottawa connection once we landed in Toronto. I’m used to making the connection in Calgary, where you literally walk fifty feet to the next gate. The walk in Toronto airport was a LOT longer. And I didn’t have the stroller with me because I was assured I wouldn’t need it for such a short time. Okay, it’s not about how long you’re there. It’s about how far you have to walk. I know that now, and I’ll argue the point next time.

So I hoofed it across the entire airport, or so it seemed. Carrying my tired, hot, full-diapered child, my backpack and my pillow. All with a full bladder. Oh, and did I mention the flight from Victoria left late? We got off the plane the same time I was supposed to be boarding the next one.

I went as fast as I could, and as I neared the gate I realized I’d have to pee before I got on the next plane, and I’d also have to change Amy’s diaper. So I did the fastest diaper change in the world, and then moved on to peeing. With a child who doesn’t stand. Without a stroller. The peeing part was okay, it was the doing up the pants part that was difficult. And I happened to pick pants that had a fly. And a button. And velcro. As I’m struggling with the fly, I hear over the PA, “This is the final boarding call for flight 706 to Ottawa”. CRAP.

I left the bathroom with two out of three fasteners done up (I didn’t get the button), and ran to the gate. I was the last person on the plane. Thankfully I was flying West Jet and they were very helpful and patient.

The next leg was going to be easy — a 40 minute flight to Ottawa. However, I had a very tired child who screamed about half of the flight. She also pooped. Which meant I had to change a diaper on the plane. Now, I am not a comfortable flyer, and I will avoid going to the bathroom at all costs. But I had to change her. Sure enough, as I’m in the teeny tiny bathroom changing her on the teeny tiny hard-as-a-rock stainless steel change table, we hit some turbulence. I freaked. I think I put my finger in poo. I got out of there as quick as I could, screaming child in tow. It was awful.

She cried the whole time we descended, poor girl. But again, the West Jet staff were amazing. They actually told me it was good for her to scream, because then she’d swallow and her ears would stop popping.

We arrived safe and sound, though, and like her brother, Amy seems to have adjusted to the time change with little effort. We went to bed at 11:00 local time and were up at 7:30. She had three naps today, and she fell asleep at 7:00 pm. Hopefully she’ll (we’ll) have a good night.

We spent the day today at Saunders Farm, which is a bit like Galey Farm but soooo much better. More attractive, bigger, more to do…I’d definitely like to go again the next time I’m here with Elliot. It made me miss the little guy, going to a place that he would have loved.

Tomorrow we’re spending the day at Meech Lake. The weather’s supposed to be beautiful.

bustin’ out

I’m currently sitting in our office/spare bedroom/room-for-Amy-to-sleep-in-so-that-she-doesn’t-bug-Elliot-and -he-doesn’t-bug-her.

To get in and out of the office chair, we have to suck in our stomachs. And Amy is officially out of her bassinet, which used to be tucked into the corner. Now her playpen is in here, which of course doesn’t fit in the corner. So it’s set up for tonight, perched precariously on the futon until we go to bed, at which time we’ll place it on the floor. Because when it’s on the floor we can’t get to the desk.

There are alternatives. We could just leave Amy in her bedroom all night (she currently sleeps in there until her first wakeup, at which time she moves to the multi-purpose room so she’s not as disruptive to Elliot). But then we have to suffer the consequences of a grouchy slightly-sleep-deprived Elliot. Or we could move the playpen into our bedroom, but there’s not much room in there either, and she’s still kind of a noisy sleeper.

I want a bigger house.

solitary walking

Mondays and Tuesdays are my days without Elliot, and it’s been great having the break. Amy’s still very portable, so we are often out and about for at least part of the day.

Today we took Yoshi for a walk, and Amy fell asleep in the stroller. So it was just me and Yoshi, and I really enjoyed the chance to go at my own pace and essentially have some alone time. My favourite time to think is when I’m walking my dog.

The other aspect of walking alone, without toddlers, husband or friends, is that I pay more attention to the people I meet.

Today I met a man in his fifties who commented on Yoshi. This led to him revealing a childhood memory of him staying with some family friends who had a pointer. He explained it was a very positive memory, as the family friends were a loving family, whereas he had come from (in his words) a very dysfunctional family.

We chatted for a bit, and I left him with a smile on my face, knowing Yoshi had reminded him of a happy time from his past.

it’s a freakin’ project, and I need a project manager

Greg and I have been discussing changing our grocery shopping habits. We’d like to try buying more local foods, and we’d like to eat a bit more organic, especially when it comes to produce.

I’ve spent too many hours over the last few days trying to figure out the best options, keeping in mind the above two goals, and also weighing the financial impact and the time impact (i.e. I don’t want to shop at four different places). It seriously should not be this hard.

The first version of the plan is to start buying produce and a few other items from spud! and start buying our meat from Glenwood Meats. These two places don’t fully meet the local and organic requirements, but it’s a start. The beauty of spud! is that I don’t have to leave the house. And we’ll try to go to Glenwood Meats once a month, when we do our Costco trip to counteract our positive impact buy disposable diapers for two kids. The remainder of our groceries will likely come from Fairway, because Greg works above one. Since we currently drive to Thrifty’s at least once a week, hopefully this grand plan will reduce our gas usage.

I just don’t know if it’s worth the time I’ve been spending menu planning, ordering food, writing grocery lists and scheduling our grocery shopping. If you’re going to go organic, shouldn’t you go entirely organic? Or does eating somewhat organically help? Ditto for local food. I suppose it does, but I still struggle with figuring out what the right thing to do is — ethically, environmentally, financially, practically, and from a health perspective.

what “possesses” them?

My mother has always been a stickler for spelling, grammar and punctuation, and I’ve inherited the trait. I can’t say I’m proud of it, and I apologize now for the nagging my children will certainly hear, but I can’t ignore it.

The two most annoying punctuation errors I see are with the use of quotes and apostrophes on signs. When I see a sign at the Willows Beach cafe that says “Fresh” Salmon or a sign on a furniture store saying “Quality” Furniture, I have to wonder what they are selling.

I usually forgive the errors I see on handmade signs (although Greg will attest to the fact that I still comment on them), but I can’t forgive the professionally made ones. Like the huge sign currently hanging in Cotton Ginny that advertises Capri’s.

And I’m not the only one. I went for an ultrasound recently and there was a spelling mistake on a sign in the bathroom. Someone (obviously a patient) had taken a pen and made a correction to the mistake.

Now, I just hope their are not alot of mistake’s, in this post.

marvelous muffins

I have finally found a healthy muffin recipe that I like. I’ve tried a few I found online, and I’ve tried altering some of my existing recipes (adding flax, whole wheat flour, etc.), but I haven’t really liked any of them. Mostly I find them too dry.

Until today. There’s a recipe for Bran Flax Muffins on our package of ground flax seed, and I made the muffins this morning. Sure, you can tell they are healthy (i.e. you know you’re not eating cake), but they still taste good. They have no fat in them, and a cup of sugar for 15 muffins. That’s about a tablespoon of sugar per muffin. Not too bad.

Oh, and Elliot scarfed one of them down in about 10 seconds flat.

Here’s the recipe, in case anyone’s interested (and in case I can’t find it again):

1.5 cups white flour
3/4 cups ground flaxseed
3/4 cup oat bran (I used wheat bran)
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1.5 cups shredded carrots (two large carrots)
2 peeled and shredded apples
1/2 cup raisins (I substituted blueberries)
1 cup chopped nuts (I used walnuts and almonds, although next time I think I may just use walnuts)
3/4 cup milk
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Mix together flour, flax, bran, sugar, soda, powder, salt and cinnamon.

Stir in carrots, apples, nuts and raisins.

Combine milk, eggs and vanilla. Pour into dry ingredients and stir just until moistened. (This is where I added the blueberries.)

Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.

epilogue

So after my bad day yesterday, we had a terrible bedtime that ended up with me in tears, asking my mum (who was visiting) how to deal with the screaming boy who woke up the girl who subsequently started screaming as well.

When they were finally asleep I sank into a hot bath, only to hear “Mama” repeated over and over while I was in the bath. It was softly repeated, but needless to say it was impossible to relax in the tub. Sigh.

Tonight Greg was on deck. I suggested that he not say anything to Elliot about having to be quiet for Amy, since that just revs him up. Greg also did the songs outside of the bedroom. We also lunged Elliot before books (i.e. he ran wildly around the house for 15 minutes).

Amy went to sleep pretty easily. Elliot had his bath, etc. I was downstairs. Elliot came to say good night to me. And I’ll swear, less than five minutes later, Greg walked out of that bedroom. No screaming, no tears, no noise. It was a dream.

Greg’s putting him to bed every night from now on.

and here’s part two

We arrived home after our aborted beach outing right before Elliot’s nap time. This is a bit risky, but usually we can make it through without too many tears. Not so today.

He was great for his diaper change, but when I said it was time to read books, the trouble started. He didn’t want to stop playing with his cars. I’m not sure what order it all happened in, and I don’t really want to rehash it all anyway, but there was screaming, crying, spitting, throwing, kicking, stomping and hitting (my glasses were thrown from my face with the force of the hit).

My struggle is keeping to my guns. Well, not so much keeping to my guns, but how to proceed once I’ve decided on the consequence. After he’d screamed and spat multiple times, I decided there would be no books. Just songs. I don’t feel I can skip the songs because he needs some sort of calming period before bed. I gave him plenty of warnings about no books, mostly because I think he’s still young, and I don’t want to be too rough on him. Plus he was so exhausted. But with the exhaustion, I wonder how much of this is actually sinking in, so I wonder if it’s worth it to stay the course. It would have been an easier process if I’d relented and allowed books once he’d finally calmed down. But I don’t want him to think that his behaviour is acceptable.

My other struggle is to contain my own anger, or at least react appropriately so he can learn how to do the same. After he hit me, I was MAD. And when he threw a car, I just got madder. I think I probably yelled. I know I grabbed him not-so-gently and sat him down.

I wanted to just put him in his crib until he calmed down, but when I did that, he started trying to frantically climb out. So I was worried about him hurting himself.

Then when my anger subsided I just wanted to hold him until he calmed down, but he was still too frustrated and he just kicked.

I don’t know what finally calmed him down. I did end up putting him in his crib again, and he must have just exhausted himself, because he didn’t try to climb out. He just looked at me forlornly. After a few minutes I asked if he wanted to sing some songs with me, and he said yes.

So in the end we had a good cuddle, a few songs, I told him I loved him and we parted ways at peace, him happily lying in his crib. Which is the end result I wanted, I just would like to find a less stressful way of getting to that result. Coming home earlier would have been smarter, but lots of times it works out fine, so it’s unpredictable.

Perhaps more play time before going to bed would be good, regardless of what time it is. Because this whole process took over half and hour anyway — I may as well have let him play for 15 minutes and then start the naptime routine. He’d end up being in bed about the same time. I will try that next time.