Thursday 28 May 2015

million dollar family

Anyone with kids knows that people, even strangers, feel free to comment to you about your family in public.

When we go out shopping as a family, we get the usual comments: "You've got your hands full" and "Wow, you're busy" (though we get comments less now since Isaac will talk the ears off anyone willing to listen, strangers very much included). The comments are pretty much all friendly and well-intentioned so I don't mind.

However, the comment that we get probably the most often is, "Oh, a boy and a girl! How perfect!" or "How lucky!" Some people even make derisive remarks about their own families like, "I got stuck with two boys."

Yup. With our boy and our girl we have the perfect family. Our oldest, a son to carry on the family name, and then our little princess, even spaced two years apart. Some even call it the million dollar family.

Well, this perfect family is about to get even perfecter! We're having another baby!

Pretty soon, when this baby bump gets bigger, we won't get the "How perfect!" comment anymore. I'm not sure what comments we'll get, I only hope that they continue to be well-intentioned.

The details:

We're due in early December, which puts us at almost 13 weeks right now. I've been feeling tired and nauseous on and off, but, all in all, I'm not complaining because this has definitely been my easiest pregnancy so far. Isaac was very cutely excited when we told him, and he still gives a little gasp every night when we pray for baby, but, most of the time, he just forgets about it. Kateri, of course, has no idea what's going on, but she's still very much Mama's baby, and even gets jealous when Isaac sits on my lap. However, she loves babies and, hopefully, by then she'll have matured enough not to mind being usurped.

In other news:

It has been a long long time since I last posted. The kids have grown leaps and bounds since then, but I guess I'll have to summarize.

I think Kateri usually gets left to the end so I'll start with her this time. As she goes from baby to toddler we're slowly getting a sense of what it's going to be like having a girl. She loves wearing dresses. If she finds one in the laundry she'll bring it to me and whine until I put in on her. One Sunday when we were all dressed for Mass, she tugged on my skirt and whined indicating that she wanted to wear it. It was a feminine summer skirt and I guess she liked it better than the dress she was wearing. I'm still astounded at how feminine she is, considering she's got an older brother as an example and we still don't have very many "girly" toys.

She's always finding new things to climb and "no" and "mine" are two of her favourite words. She can get quite upset when thwarted, but she's not nearly as adamant about getting her own way as Isaac was (is). She can be quite the mimic, picking up words and gestures very quickly. Today she watched me eating cherries and spitting out the pits. She's a good eater now so I gave her one to see what she would do. She put the whole thing in her mouth...and then spit the whole thing out again. Most of the time she's just my little sweetheart, often wanting to be held and cuddled. Again, in this she's pretty much the opposite of Isaac, who always wanted down, down, down. While her cuddliness can be inconvenient sometimes (when I'm trying to make lunch) I'm able to appreciate it having experienced the other end of the spectrum.

Now for Isaac. Isaac's big news is that he is now a full-time glasses wearer. We brought both kids to the optometrist for a check-up. The last time I was in, they had told me it's a good idea to bring young kids, because they can fix some problems if they catch them early enough (they also told me it's free, which didn't hurt). We didn't have the least idea that anything was actually wrong, but it turns out that Isaac has an astigmatism. I was pretty shocked. Who knew that my perfect kid could have anything wrong with him, and at so young an age? But, as far as health issues go, wearing glasses is a pretty minor one, though he will probably need them for the rest of his life. The next question I had was how on earth are we going to get this boy to keep something on his face all day? The first few days involved a lot of tears, but by the end of a week he was pretty much resigned.

We've also been thinking a lot about homeschooling since Isaac is school-age in the fall. We've decided to keep him home, at least for the first year. It's a whole new world for me, since I wasn't homeschooled, and it's pretty overwhelming. But at least kindergarten is pretty low pressure and since he's still young (he won't be four until October) I might even wait awhile before officially starting. I'm already teaching him letters and numbers whenever he's interested in learning but I must say that the idea of trying to impose structure on Mr. Mind-of-his-own is intimidating. The other day I was showing him how to do simple mazes that we found in a colouring book. I had thought maybe he'd be too young to understand the concept, but he picked it up pretty much right away. After intently tracing his way for a few minutes he started jerkily going all over the page and saying, "I'm breaking the walls! I'm breaking the walls!" Hmmm. This boy will be interesting to homeschool.

The whole family has been enjoying the nice weather. Isaac is thrilled to have a two-wheel bike (with training wheels) and wants to bike to the park everyday. Kateri loves going for walks too and has discovered the joy of sandboxes, swings, and slides for the first time. Whenever she sees playground equipment she points urgently and says "wide wide wide" which can mean either "ride", "slide", or "swing." Sean has been planting in the garden and building a better fence for it, since the critters ate everything that grew last year. And I'm slowly finding the maternity clothes and feeling thankful that I'm not too sick. Life is good and we are getting very excited for December!

So excited!

Trip to the Butterfly Conservatory with Grandma.


Glasses!

Tire glasses! And Kateri has a gold tooth apparently.

First ponytail(s). Too soon? Too soon.

Family picture at Easter.

Tuesday 10 March 2015

Spring

Last week I heard that the forecast was finally calling for some warmer weather and I realized that we didn't have any spring gear for Kateri.  On Saturday we went to Once Upon a Child and as I sorted through slush pants, jackets, and rubber boots I began to think about spring. I thought about taking the kids outside without searching for mittens and fighting to get snowpants on. I thought about the sidewalks actually being passable for our double stroller. I thought about my kids being able to get some of their energy out in a park instead of running in circles around and around our living room. I thought about snow melting and puddles to splash in. I thought about green things poking up out of the wet dirt. I thought about Lent ending and the Easter season beginning.

As I stood there in the store my eyes got a little misty and I actually started to tear up a little. So happy at the thought of spring, so happy to have a pair of rubber boots in my hands. 

Spring is coming. Easter is coming. Patience is all that is required. 

Awhile ago I was praying about my kids. The prayer, as usual, went something like this:

"I love them so much...but they can be so frustrating....but they can be so difficult...but it can be exhausting....but I can't seem to keep that edge out of my voice sometimes."

The response I got was "Love is patient and kind."

Patient. Kind. I had heard that verse so many times, seen it on so many decorative plaques, that the words had lost all meaning for me, but they suddenly hit home. 

Patient. Kind. 

I love my kids. I love them so much it hurts, so much that I would do anything for them, right?

Yet there I am snapping at my toddler for taking way too much toilet paper again and jerking the baby away from climbing on the potty again.

The Christian call is not an easy one. It requires that I love with God's love, that is, perfectly. It requires that I love my kids patiently and kindly every minute of every day. And it is hard. In fact, it is impossible without grace. 

I humbly ask, Lord, that you grant me patience and kindness, especially in these days of waiting for Easter and waiting for spring.  

To sustain us as we wait, here are some pictures from Easter morning two years ago:




Wednesday 4 February 2015

waterworks

It's official. I never know what the day is going to bring.

For example, today I did not expect to hear strange sounds coming from the bathroom while I was busy with Kateri.

I did not expect to find the bathroom a swimming pool, with my toddler standing on top of his little potty (to be "safe" from the water) gleefully squealing and holding the handle of the toilet down so that the water just kept coming. Add to this mental picture the fact that he was completely naked since we were getting dressed when he trotted off to use the potty. I'm trying to get him to dress himself these days and it takes about an hour.

I did not expect when I ran downstairs to get the mop to find that the water was already streaming through the ceiling and into the basement. He'd only been gone 3 minutes, tops! Isaac wanted to help clean up. No way! Some people use cleaning up as a punishment or "consequence" for making a mess. But since Isaac would thoroughly enjoy such a punishment I thought it better to send him to his room. Plus, I didn't want him playing in the toilet water. With Isaac sent to his room and Kateri thrown into her highchair with a few crackers I managed to clean up. 

I'm still not sure what happened. When I asked Isaac what he put in the toilet he said toilet paper, but unless he put reams and reams in (which is quite possible) it wouldn't have overflowed that much. When I asked him if he put anything else in he eventually said "bar", so I thought maybe he had put a bar of soap in, but when I went to check, the hand soap was still sitting innocently by the sink.

I get so angry sometimes, but I have to remind myself that Isaac still doesn't know what he's doing most of the time, He certainly didn't mean to overflow the toilet and maybe didn't even really realize it was a bad thing until I came and flipped out. What I find hard to comprehend, though, because I'm not the same, is how much he enjoys himself in these situations. Even when people are angry at him he enjoys the drama of it. After the initial mop up, when I came to ask him what happened, he told me how he flushed the toilet, and water came pouring out, and he had to climb up on his potty to get away from it. He got more and more excited as he told me the story and couldn't help but smile, even though he could tell that I wasn't pleased.

Now that I can think about it calmly, it's really pretty good that we've gone 3 and a half years without a toilet overflow. After all, it is a classic. And last night he found the haircutting scissors and took a couple snips off his hair (only a couple, thankfully). So I guess we're hitting some real milestones this week.

Lord, give me patience. Lord, help me understand and love these crazy children of mine. And Lord, please don't let Isaac learn how to open a child safety door knob for a long, long time. AMEN.


Thursday 15 January 2015

wisdom teeth

Here I am! Finally sitting down to write an update! What has brought about this turn of events?

I got my wisdom teeth out on Friday. I've been laid up for a few days but am now starting to recover. I still have a sore mouth and puffy cheeks, and I'm still not quite up to taking care of the kids on my own (they're at Nana and Papa's house today), but I think I might have enough strength to crank out a blog post today.

I'll start off with things I've learned since having my wisdom teeth pulled:

1. Tylenol 3, though potent, is not worth that wooziness and nausea that accompany it for me. Ick.

2. Being on a liquid-only diet gives you strange thoughts about food. Never before had the thought of pureed bacon seemed so appealing. Yesterday, when I managed to down some grated cheese I was very, very happy.

3. I look silly as a chipmunk.

4. My husband is awesome. I mean, I knew this before, but he really outdid himself this weekend, taking care of me, and the kids, and the house. He was also operating on not much sleep since Kateri was very unhappy with being abruptly night-weaned.

5. I miss my kids! I've still been around them but I haven't really been able to be a mom to them. I can't run around with them, read them stories, laugh with them. Actually, it still hurts to smile, and being around my kids and not able to smile is just plain weird.

On that note--the kids--I suppose no one wants to hear about them? Just kidding, I know that's really what people come here for. Since I last wrote Isaac has turned 3 and Kateri has turned 1. Our little man is now a pre-schooler and our baby is now walking and talking.

We celebrated Isaac's birthday in October with a small party which included lots of balloons. One of which, when we were on our way to the park, blew away onto the street and was popped by a garbage truck. True story. And one which he will still tell you today even though it was three months ago. The incident, traumatic as it was at the time, has not turned him against garbage trucks. His love of trucks and trains, and pretty much anything that goes, continues to grow.

His imagination also continues to grow. One day he held up his pointer finger and said "I'm John." I knew he was pretending but I wasn't sure whether he was pointing at me, calling me John, or pointing at an imaginary person named John. Turns out, his finger is the one named John. His other pointer finger is named Gomie (don't ask me where he got that!) and the rest of his fingers are all their friends. My pointer fingers are the Mommy and Daddy and we all have some fun family time together occasionally.

Kateri started walking the week before her first birthday. True to form, she started with a few cautious steps at a time and gradually did more and more as she was ready. Right around Christmas she discovered her voice was so pleased to learn a few words that she hasn't stopped talking since. She points to our Christmas tree and says "ba" (ball, because there are lots of ball ornaments on it), she picks up her doll and says "bebe". She's also mastered hi, bye, mama and dada. I just taught her the sign language for "more". She picked it up right away and says "ma" while she does it.

I love the age she's at. She's learning so quickly and her personality is really emerging. She's our sweet little lady and as happy as can be (most of the time). I have to admit, I was dreading the toddler phase a little bit. Isaac was (is) a challenging toddler. His strong will, passionate responses, and outgoing personality can be so much fun and are part of what make him who he is, but they also make him difficult to discipline. I'm learning that Kateri is much gentler and more easy going by nature. She's a little shy and uncertain in new situations, which may occasionally be annoying, when she just wants to be held at family function for example, but it also makes her less likely to run away from us in the grocery store. She is certainly discovering that she has a mind of her own and is learning to grip her toys very tightly when Isaac approaches. Whatever Kateri's toddlerhood brings, at least this time I'm armed with a little more experience.

As always, there's so much more I could write. But, as always, if I don't get this published now it'll never get done.

A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our family to yours!