Stroller Envy

ok, so i can be a little juvenile. Honestly, who can't be. I can admit it and embrace the child in me :-P. Ever since the weather got nicer, everyone who had had babies over the winter and since has been coming out of the woodwork and out for walks.

My stroller is the one i used with my daughter, so it is almost 6 years old. I looked around everywhere, found out what i wanted in a stroller, found the exact one i wanted and made sure no one else had it cheaper. I paid $300 for the stroller, car seat and base all together (I have a severe problem with things needing to match) because i knew that we would be having two children and i wanted to use the same things through both children. I had not expected that it would take us so long to bring number 2 into the world but shit happens. It was perfect, i loved it.

So, 5 years later along comes Monster. The stroller does just what i want it to do, it matches the infant car seat, i am happy. Around the same time that we finished using the infant car seat, i noticed (maybe hubby noticed) that one of the back wheels was at a funny angle. It has always squeaked and groaned, but i didn't mind. So now, it squeaks, groans, and the wheel is gone funny. Then i notice all the wear and tear on it. All of a sudden, it isn't perfect.

Then i notice all the other lovely strollers walking around that are far newer, they have made tremendous advancements in gadgets and doo-dads, and colours. Now i am having trouble saying hello to people i see walking because i am checking out their strollers. I want one. any one. Hubby was not supportive and while i could understand why, I had stroller envy! We would talk, i would agree, we could get two more years out of this one *sigh* ok, fine. then i would see another stroller and i wasn't so fine. Hubby tried several thingS to fix the wheel. i will admit to a certain small about of sabotage :-D but that is all..

So two days ago i was shopping and the damn wheel fell off! I called hubby and graciously offered to run next door to toys r us and buy a new one. He didn't fall for it and told me to bring it home, he would try again. *sigh*

Then last night, he tell me to start looking online for used strollers maybe one like mine that we can use for parts. I have to tell you, this didn't inspire me. until i saw THE stroller. it is the same brand as mine, barely used, newer by far, and i called the guy, he lives 5 minutes away. At 9:30 last night i went buzzing off (with hubby's approval) to look, but i am instructed not to give any money yet. I went to see it and it is beautiful! and the guy only wants $70. Honestly, we could turn around and sell it for more than that.

I was stoked when i left his place and hubby was, i think, tired of hearing about my stroller envy. I went this morning to pick it up :-D. it has a little more wear than i was able to see last night, and isn't quite as maneuverable as my old one, but i love it and it has things on it, i didn't even know they made. I am in LOVE, and i will no longer have stroller envy. I will put pictures of both strollers sometime today :)

All Kinds of Dental Excitement

Ok, funny subject line, but true. One of the exciting things about having children that are 5 years apart in age is that Angel is losing her teeth as Monster is getting his. His fourth tooth popped through just today, and I know it was today because i checked this morning, and then this afternoon he was laughing and i caught sight of a little speck of white through the gums. In goes Mommy's finger, and sure enough... there it is. I can't wait til numbers 3 and 4 grow in enough to see properly and i will take pictures of his toothy grin. In the mean time, here are some older pictures of his first two teeth

The day before yesterday... so Wednesday... Angel lost her first tooth!! she is 5 1/2, it is a little early, but we knew it was coming. He two lower front teeth have been lose for well over a month now. She was sleeping next door at her friend's house and she ran over to show us how lose it had gotten and then an hour later came back home to bring us the tooth!

It is the first time we have run into the toothfairy, and what a sucker she is! Angel got a "My Littlest Petshop" toy AND $5... I have told the toothfairy's funder that this is not happening with every tooth, that it is a first tooth special only! He agreed. But we will wait to see what happens shortly when tooth #2 falls out. sucker.
On another note entirely, earlier in the week Angel and I were going shopping just the two of us and she went upstairs to get dressed. *sigh* never send a 5 year old alone into her room to get dressed. I had to be seen in public with her wearing the halloween costume i made her when she was 2. 2!! *sigh* she made everyone smile. and i was smart enough to take a picture with which i plan to blackmail her at a later date :D

Just to keep it even.. Monster is standing! He is not yet 8 months old and if you put him in front of something, he will stand and hang on. But if you stand him up with something behind him, he will lean. Barely, he stands mostly on his own. I think this is amazing !

A Blue Funk

I don't even know what blue funk means, but it sounds like i feel. Hubby came home Sunday evening around 10pm. Angel was not yet asleep, hoping that she would still be awake when he got home and we let her downstairs to sit with us. I had to send his brother to go and get him as Monster was out cold when Hubby was finally allowed to leave the hospital. He had his procedure sunday morning, everything went really well. While he was gone, i got all the things done that i mean to do and the stuff that he normally does. It felt great! He has been home for two days, and i don't want to do anything. I do not have motivation to do anything around the house with him here. I have no idea why that is. I feel like he monitors my phone calls, internet time, and i feel like he is criticizing me all the time. Most of this is not true, so why do i feel like this? He honestly doesn't care what i get up to during the day but i don't feel like i can be me and i find this exhausting and cannot wait for him to go back to work. only three more months to go. i thought it would be nice to have him home for 9 months, but i am counting down til he goes back. This is one of the weeks of the summer that i do not have anything planned, and i am feeling at a loss. like i just do not know what to do with myself. I even went for a walk this morning hoping it would help. it is too hot..... i am going to try and find something to do with myself....

Careful What You Wish For

In a clear case of careful what you wish for, hubby has not yet come home from the hospital. He is actually having a nightmarish adventure. I took him to emerg thursday, where they told him (and me) that he would have surgery friday afternoon and wanted to send him home. He wasn't ok with that and made them keep him. I know for a fact he is regretting that decision as I type. They got him a bed sometime thursday night... and by bed, i mean a room in emergency, across from the nursing station. Friday afternoon, when they hadn't hear from OR about when to get hubby ready, the nurse called to find out that his name was not in for a procedure.. anywhere.. I have no idea what the doctor did, but no one knew anything about him being there. NO ONE. and the doctor was not only not in the hospital, he was gone on vacation. FANTASTIC! So the urologist on call comes to have a look at him, sent him for an x-ray to check on the progress of his stone, some tests and tells him that he will get him in when he can... probably sunday, and to sit tight... for TWO days... so midnight on Friday night they found him another temporary bed, at least in a quieter place (lots of old people doing nothing but sleeping). He saw the urologist this afternoon, yes it will be tomorrow but he won't be going home before monday. On an up note, as we were about to leave him this evening, they came to get him to take him to his new room! He has a real room! Two days later.. LOL. he has the window bed and a lovely view and a nurse willing to cater to him. and a roommate. too bad he is anti-social, but i think it's good for him.

all i can say, is that it is a good thing that he can spend entire days in bed because at the end of this, it'll be a long time before he feels like doing it at home :)

The Best Day

Ok, this is going to sound totally cruel, I think. I am having the best day! Hubby has been in the hospital since yesterday afternoon because after we went to emerg, yet again, they told him he was having surgery in the morning and tried to send him home and he didn't let them. He was determined to stay until they fixed him. "Well, we don't have a bed for you, you will have to sit in the waiting room until we have a stretcher for you in a hallway somewhere." He said "ok," and went and sat down. LOL... welcome to my life...

Hubby has been off on parental leave since Feb and he is off until some time in October. He is driving me crazy. Today i have had the kind of peace i won't get until he goes back to work. i don't know why i find having him home stressful. Most of the time he is either sleeping or doing his own thing, but i don't feel like i get anything done that i want to when he is here, that i am not doing enough, not doing it right, and i feel like he is watching. Today has been lovely.

I got up with Monster just fine, woke up Angel, got them both fed and bathed/ showered, dressed. Monster is sleeping. I have even had the time to do all kinds of cleaning and it isn't even noon yet!! I feel great! It isn't that i wish him sick to stay away, and i really am looking forward to him coming home.... but i will be counting the days until october.

On a totally seperate note, Angel has crazy hat day at camp today and i was just going to fix up one of her old hats, but hubby suggested i take her out and buy one. *sigh* so i bought a cheap hat and went to the dollar store to buy embellishments. I worked on it from 8pm until midnight last night.. and this is what we got at the end, she LOVES it... which is worth more than anything in the world :)

A Healthier Me

I am forever making big plans to workout, go to the gym, lift weights, run, etc. I am good for awhile (well, a few times, anyways) but inevitably I lose interest. I didn't give up on it, but I did decide to take a step back and stop stressing. Pregnancy helped with that tremendously! :) I put my gym membership on hold until October when hubby goes back to work. I decided to view the gym as a break, some time to myself instead of torture time and something i have to do.

In May, for my birthday, i asked for a pedometer to keep an eye on how much walking around i really do during a day. It really makes me walk more! then, three weeks ago or so I found out a woman i know moved near me and had a baby a few months after i had Monster. She walks around the neighbourhood all the time, and now I join her as often as i can. Well now, somedays i go whether she can join me or not. It is feeling good, like something i want to do, instead of something i have to do. Last week, Monster was up at 6am and by the time he got back to sleep, i was totally awake. I decided to get up and go for a walk all by myself. It was amazing! and i felt like running, so i ran. for as long as i wanted and when i wanted. no rules to stick to. I enjoyed it.

Tonight, at 8pm, i felt like going out, on my own and walking/running. so i did. I was out for 45 minutes and i ran for 7min of that. I think i will track how much i run, just out of curiosity as opposed to competition and meeting goals. we'll see how it goes. i may not get out on my own very often. But it was a great way to spent an evening and get some time to myself.

saw: a rainbow and reflection
smelled: fresh cut lumber
tasted: sweat of my brow
heard: my footsteps in the gravel
touched: hard one.... my mp3 player??

A Night from Hell

The other night I woke up at 5 am to find hubby standing up, hoving over me. Scared the crap out of me! Turns out he was not hovering over me, he was leaning on the footboard of the bed. But at 5 am, it felt like it. Turns out he was coming to wake me up to call 911 because he was in excruciating pain, but on his way to the bedroom it started to subside and he was trying to decide if he could wait it out or not. We called telehealth and they recommended he get to a doctor the next day. Hubby HATES to follow advice. So last night, he was hit again. this time at 8pm and thankfully the kids were still awake, so i packed them all up and headed off to the hospital. Emerg wasn't bad, we got there shortly after 8pm and were home by 11 (with two kids who should have been going to bed before we even left the house? honestly wasn't as bad as it sounds. thank God for the snugli!!). turns out he has a kidney stone. I didn't get to bed until sometime after midnight, and Monster woke up every hour until the alarm went off at 6:30am. I got the kids up for 7, got them dressed and left the house to take hubby to the hospital for a CT scan. I dropped him off and headed home. He called for a pickup at 10:30. He has a 6mm kidney stone that they want him to try and pass. That sounds easy doesn't it? Pass? What a horrific thing to witness. Angel was in tears and at one point, sobbing. I am glad the kids were there, it gave me something else to things about and concentrate on.

He is better now, the pain is only lasting for 15 min or so at a time, and he is on some medications to help him. The doctor wants to give him 2 weeks!! before they take any other measures. I hope this is over soon!

A Soother Dependency

Every night when i put my son to sleep, i automatically give him his soother and I rely on it periodically through the day. It was about this age that Angel gave up her soother (because she got a head cold and couldn't breathe through her nose, hence couldn't suck on the soother and breathe. So she was just done) and I made sure not to offer it to her again. It has been bothering me, this dependency on the soother. I have tried not to give it to him in the day, but it just makes him so much happier. and then he gets it every night. I have emotional baggage with thumb-sucking, so it was my happier alternative beacause it can be taken away.

Tonight, i decided to fight with Monster and not give him his soother to go to sleep with. He didn't care. Went to sleep without his soother and without a fight. So who is dependant on the soother? Looks like it was me... huh.. who'd a thunk?

I am not saying I won't be using it for daytime peace, but nice to know he doesn't NEED it to sleep...