Cheeze Whiz and Mustard

Blame it on the propofol

2012-02-17T19:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning, I had my tubes tied. Well, I had them snipped and cauterized, which is apparently what they do now.

I get to the day surgery ward, where I get changed into my sexy gown and housecoat. You know, the one where your ass hangs out the back like Jack Nicholson. The nurse comes and takes my history again, then I have to do some labwork. One poke, one vial, that's it. Oh, and a pregnancy test, because DAMN wouldn't that be terrible! Get cut open and Oops! There's a baby in that there uterus. Hmmm. Of course, being a diligent patient, I had already had the idea to take a pee test the night before, which was negative, so I knew I was good to go.

Then a nurse and man with beautiful long Fabio hair tied in a ponytail come in to my little curtain-space. He says he's going to give me an IV. As I stare down his scrubs at his chest hair and admire his long mane of hair, I ask if he's a nursing student. "No, I'm a medical student. Third year. We don't get to do IVs much so I take all the practice I can get." I must have had a lustful look on my face that he mistook for aprehension, because he then reassured me: "Don't worry, it's not my first time." All I'm thinking is "Dude...your hair is so PRETTY!"

He gets out a needle for an IV, and the nurse tells him he needs a bigger needle. That's always fun to hear. When he asks why, she tells him for surgeries, always opt for a larger needle because if you have to give the patient something fast, they want it to get into the blood FAST. Makes sense to me.
So he grabs a LARGE needle and tells me "Ok, small poke."

And then OH MY GOD. THIS IS THE MOST PAINFUL IV INSERTION EVER! I THINK I MAY BLEED OUT RIGHT NOW. GAH! THIS GUY'S GOING TO BE A DOCTOR? HOLY CRAP! Oh boy...I'm getting woozy...and nauseated...and oh, that's what colour my eyelids are on the inside? Coolio.

Another nurse comes in and says that the IV blew, but she wants to try to salvage it so that I don't have to be poked again. Huzzah! She does salvage it and within about 10 minutes, I feel like a moderately sexy humanoid again. Only moderately because of the robe. Otherwise I would definitely rank as a sexy beast.

When it's time to go to the OR, they wheel me there and I walk into the room. They start putting leads on me and the doctor giving me the anaesthetic asks if I have ever had problems being put under or whatnot. I say no, but could someone get me a warm blanket because it's EFFING cold in here! I left out the effing part, as my lips were trembling from the cold. A nurse brings me a warm blanket (or three) and I warm up a bit. A nurse looks at me and says "Have a good sleep" and I hear the doctor say "Propofol" and then I black out.

I wake up, shaking my head from left to right, from right to left, over and over. I cannot get a good breath. There's a damn oxygen mask on my face and it feels like it's suffocating me. There are about 3 or 4 people with me, and I hear someone say "She bradded on us. Watch that she doesn't go below 40." Having had a NICU baby, I know what brad means: bradycardia (heartrate dangerously slow). I instantly start thinking "Michael Jackson died from propofol! Michael Jackson died from propofol! Michael Jackson died from propofol!" I think I may have muttered it, too, but they couldn't understand what I was saying under that mask. I tried to lift my hands to pull the mask off, but I was still paralyzed. Finally, I realize that I am not the King of Pop and that I am not going to die of a propofol overdose, and I give up trying to tell them about MJ. I managed to tell them that I couldn't breathe and that I was cold. And hungry. Fabio-doctor asked if I wanted something from Tim Horton's. I tried to laugh, but I am pretty sure I said "No Michael Jackson." Whatever.

I went back to sleep for a bit, then I felt like I had to go to the bathroom. I went, and since getting up and going to the bathroom is the main criteria for discharge, they told me I could go home as soon as my ride showed up.

Thrilled that I was not, in fact, dead like Michael Jackson, I called my step-dad to see if he could swing by to pick me up on his way home for lunch. I was totally groggy and not totally coherent in my thoughts, but hey, I could pee. And fart a little. Homeward bound!

Tony had been taking care of the kids and making cinnamon buns while I was gone. I get home to see these beauties proofing in their final stage. When he leaves to pick up Sashimi from school fro his swimming lesson, the buns are almost ready to go into the oven. I put them in the oven for 20 minutes, set the timer, and then lay down.

BAD MOVE. The propofol got to me, and I passed right out. Did not hear the timer. Woke up 2.5 hours later to the smell of burned sugar. OH SHIT! I take the buns out of the oven. They are as burned brown as a big piece of dog crap on your lawn. No smoke in the house, no fire. That's a bonus. But no cinnamon buns either, which is a total anti-bonus. Propofol killed Michael Jackson AND Tony's cinnamon buns. Tony was not very impressed with me, but really, it's not my fault that MJ died. And it's not my fault his buns died. Blame it on the propofol.
I do.
And a little on his doctor.

The Happy Valentine Sing-a-long

2012-02-14T19:37:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's, Tony

That's a cold sore you see

It hurts like the bitches

So no blow job from me

Even using a thermal camera, it's just not sexy.

*To the tune of Happy Birthday. Everybody join along!

Dr. Sashimi's Office Rules

2012-02-12T13:27:00.000-08:00

Rules of Dr. Sashimi's office (as dictated to me by Dr. Sashimi himself):
1. Don't pick your nose.
2. Don't act like the doctor if you're NOT the doctor.
3. Knock before entering the examination room and don't wake the doctor up if he's sleeping.

If you break any of these rules, you'll get a ticket.
Just to shake things up, I broke one of the rules. And yes, I got a ticket. The ticket says:
"Since you can't listen to the doctor's rules, you can't come back for 5 weeks. If you get hurt and need to see the doctor, you'll just have to deal with it yourself. Don't come and see me."

Does your doctor's office run this way?

Damn. He's writing me a ticket. Should've been more careful.

Never throw out a pot

2012-02-10T20:22:00.000-08:00

My sister called me this morning, telling me that she nearly burned her house down. She had put some steel-cut oats on to pre-boil last night, then went into her room and unintentionally fell asleep. Her landlords came and woke her about 45 minutes later because they could smell smoke. The oats were burned black to the bottom of the pot. "I'll have to throw that pot away," she told me.
"Nah. It'll come out," I replied.

We had been living in Timmins for about five weeks when Sashimi was born. Timmins was about 3000km from home, and we knew no one. I had met a few neighbours, and one was nice enough to take me out, show me around, and lend me some baby items, including a mini-electric breastpump. She had told me that she may ask for the pump back, should a friend of hers decide she wanted it, but that I was free to use it until then.That breastpump came in pretty handy when I was ridiculously loaded with boob-juice, and I had to sterilize it often.

One afternoon, while three-week-old Sashimi was sleeping, I placed the pump parts in boiling water on the stove. It was supposed to boil for 20 minutes to sterilize. I looked in the pot and thought to myself "There's lots of water, it won't boil dry. I don't need to set the timer, I won't forget." Yes, these were my exact thoughts. I have a super memory of this specific event.

I don't know WHAT I was doing in the computer room, since I was not on the facebook at that time, and I did not do the whole myspace thing. Maybe I was using MSN messenger? Who the hell knows. What I was NOT doing, however, was paying attention to my boiling breastpump. Wait, my neighbour's boiling breastpump.

All of a sudden, the smoke detector started to blare. I looked into the hallway and it was thick with smoke. I ran toward the source of the smoke because I was obviously thought I could extinguish a fire with my boob-juice. I looked at the stove and there was a FIRE. A real flippin FIRE. With flames. They were orange and reaching out of the pot, taunting me. I looked at my boobs and realized there was not enough milk in them to put that fire out, so I grabbed a towel, wrapped it around the pot handle, ran it to the sink and poured water into it. It sizzled and steamed and stank. Not like burned milk. Like the Earth was dying...a slow death by breastpump melting.

I may have just about burned down our new house, but so help me GOD I was not going to let the baby wake up! Friggin smoke detector, would you SHUT THE EFF UP?! But, of course, like all good new homes have, the smoke detector was hardwired to the electrical system. I couldn't just yank the batteries out, I had to find a stupid reset switch on it, but I was too short to reach the detector to look at it/club it with a baseball bat and we did not own a ladder. At that point, I started feeling a little high from the fumes of incinerated plastic, and worried for my darling sleeping baby. So, I ran into the room where he slept, wrapped him in thick blankets, and went outside. There we waited, and waited, and waited, listening to the smoke alarm going off. Various neighbours came by to make sure we were alright, and I just waved and smiled and said that we were Fiiiiiiine, and that I just burned something and couldn't get the smoke detector to turn off. No biggie. Smile and wave, people. Smile and wave.

Finally, our nextdoor neighbour (who shared our driveway) came home from work and used his ladder to reach the detector reset switch and turned it off.

Ok. So at this point, Sashimi was still sleeping in the thousand blankets I had wrapped him in, and the fumes in the house were probably toxic or something. Not Britney toxic, just enough that I thought my brain cells were slowly amassing a collection of yellow "For Dummies" manuals. It was too cold outside, though, to stay there much longer. I opened all the windows in the house and retreated to the basement, where the smell was not as bad. There we stayed until Tony came home. I may have called him to tell him about burning something or other. I can't remember. What I DO remember, though, is the insane mess of ashes and soot spread throughout our house. Our vent about the stove was ruined, our cupboards were coated with ashes, the entire front end of the house had to be completely cleaned - a good four-hour job that evening. It is amazing how much mess a breastpump can make when lit on fire for a prolonged period of time. I also remember Tony forbidding me to EVER use the stove when he was not home. We ate a lot of sandwiches that month.
And then I remember realizing that I had just melted my neighbour's breastpump into nothingness. A neighbour I hardly knew. As much as I like to return things to people, I did not think the crust on the bottom of my pot would suck the milk out of any breast. So I sucked it up and bought a brand new pump, exactly like the one I had melted, and kept it in mint condition, just to give back to my neighbour. If she ever asked for it back.

Which she did not. And I ended up selling it on kijiji about a year ago for $25.

And that breastpump-lending neighbour became one of my best friends in the world. Although she may rethink that when she reads this post.

The moral of the story: After four months of scraping and soaking, that pot came clean. A little bronzed, but clean. And it is the perfect sized pot for one box of Kraft Dinner. So never throw out a pot, no matter what you burned in it.

Nope, I don't mind at all

2012-02-07T10:50:00.000-08:00

Tony doesn't get me flowers for Valentine's Day. He gets me chocolates. And although he works at a major discount department store starting with a W and ending with Mart and gets a staff discount, he does not buy my chocolates from there.
He orders them from a city 500 km away and has them overnighted to me.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy!

No, I don't mind at all.

And I know it's not V-day yet, but these babies are best consumed within 5-7 days since they are made with fresh ingredients and no preservatives.
It's a tough job, but someone has to do it. If it has to be me, so be it.

I may have a problem

2012-01-31T23:03:00.000-08:00

I wear glasses. I have worn glasses since I was 12 years old. I hated my first pair:


I have no words. Purple Monkey Dishwasher.

I saved enough babysitting money to buy my first pair of contacts two years later, and wore those puppies every day. Unfortunately, no one really told me that they were not correcting for my astigmatism, and so I was not actually seeing clearly. My mom bought me a pair of Gucci frames in high school, which were somewhat cooler, so I wore them. Sometimes. When my contacts were tiring my eyes. And I wasn't trying to attract the boys. Or make out with one.

By my university years, I had resigned myself to glasses, finally realizing that I could see shitake-mushroom-all in the giant lecture halls wearing my completely useless contacts. I had some cute glasses (of which I have no photo) that I wore ragged, so I bought a new pair. The optometrist always told me (as I am sure they tell most people) that you should really have two pairs of glasses, in case one breaks. I always agreed with him, in theory. In practice, who the eff could afford two pairs of glasses? Not this starving student.

My $500 glasses that I bought in university.

A couple of years ago, I heard about online glasses shopping. I was extremely skeptical, but I decided to try them out:


Pretty nice specs for $68!

I liked them so much, and they were so cheap that I bought my FIRST back-up pair. Then, since they were so cheap, I ordered my very first pair of prescription sunglasses. No more stupid clip-ons with the damn bar across the top. Real. Fashionable. Sunglasses. I felt like a prom queen who wore sunglasses to the prom.

I was good with three pairs. Good for a while. Then they started sending me online coupons. So I ordered another pair:

$50 glasses on a ridicuous head of hair.

Ah. Two pairs of back-up glasses. Plus sunglasses. Plus the original pair. I felt so secure. And cool. I could coordinate my glasses with my clothes. Excellent.

Oh? What was that? There was another online glasses store that was even CHEAPER? Well frick. I HADS to see if those were any good:

Whoops...did I order glasses for Sashimi, too? My bad...

My orange glasses became one of my new faves. I have an orange winter jacket that matches these glasses exactly. I get mad props everytime I wear the Glacket combo. I totally do it on purpose, now. I'm awesome like that.

Then another coupon appeared in my inbox: Free glasses *insert spit-take* WHAAAAT? That's right, free. You don't kick a gift-glasses coupon in the eyeball. So I ordered myself a pair of cat-eye glasses. I had always wanted some like that:


I may have also ordered some glasses for Tony...

For the past year, I have been sitting in a comfy world of seven pairs of glasses. Well, six regular glasses and my sunglasses. Not quite enough to wear a different pair each day of the week, and that was sort of getting to me. I mean, what kind of glasses afficionado could I be if I did not have a day-of-the-week collection?

And then I saw these:

There ain't no shushing in MY library! Bring on da funk!

And now, my set is complete**:

Ta-da! Combined cost around $250

**Until I get another coupon. I cannot be held responsible for what happens when a coupon makes its way into my inbox. Somebody be buyin' stuff. Must be some mistake at PayPal...

Pipe Dreams

2012-01-28T21:44:00.000-08:00

Once in a while, I sit and dream. Or stand and dream. Well, maybe I slump into the couch with children yelling all around me and climbing up my pants and try to think happy thoughts.

My heterosexual life partner aka my bestie is having her second baby in a few days. We have not had a chance to hang out without our children in tow for a LONG time, so we made plans to meet at a local Mexican restaurant. We had a great time, not talking about our kids at all (which, to be honest, is freaking amazing for moms-about-town). And, being pregnant, she did not mind ordering an $11 piece of pie for dessert. And I, still lactating, did not mind doing the same. Nor did I mind bringing half of it home only to be consumed within 30 minutes: "I'll MAKE IT FIT!!"

Being in that amazing diner, where one woman makes everything from scratch every day, makes me want to open my own restaurant. I love cooking. I like to think that I am reasonably good at it. My kids disagree, but what do they know...they like eating candy from those gross quarter-dispensing machines. Point made. My favourite job while in university was working at a bistro on weekends. I had to wake up at 5:30 am to get there on time, I worked like a mule, no breaks, sweat on my brow, and loved every minute. That's saying a lot because if there is anything I do NOT like, it's mules.

I often think of WHAT kind of restaurant I could reasonably run: my cooking is quite eclectic, although I have definite roots in the grand old Baba tradition of butter, lard, and bacon. Organic butter? Even better. Having a husband that has to work at weight maintenance means that I also can cook quite healthy meals, but if it were up to me, hot dogs would always be sautéed with onions in lard, served on a grilled bun with cheese.

So here is where you come in: if you have eaten at Chez Sarah* before and heard I was opening a diner, what would you look forward to eating there? Is there anything I make that makes your tummy quiver with excitement?** I would not be in a position to open a diner now, but it may be a pipe dream that I hang on to for a while until a decision day really comes.

*If you have not eaten my food before, maybe tell me what kind of restaurant YOU would run...
**And please don't say Kraft Dinner. I may have to kick some ass.

Nature happened in my frog tank

2012-01-19T20:18:00.000-08:00

We have frogs. Ok, fire-bellied toads. Ok, we HAD frogs.
Sashimi came home from school yesterday afternoon and I had to have a talk with him. I looked him straight in the eyes and said "Sashimi, Flippy and Floppy died. When I looked for them in their tank this morning, they were dead."
Sashimi started to well up with tears, and he asked "Did you not feed them?"
Me: Well, frogs don't live as long as cats (we also have a cat) or as long as people. When they get old, their bodies just stop working and they die.
Sashimi: Oh. So Flippy and Floppy were old?
Me: Well, they were old for frogs.
Sashimi: Oh. Ok. I gotta go fix my spy phone now.

And with that, he ran off to his room to fix his imaginary spy phone with his imaginary spy tools that his NON-imaginary friend Jake gave him. (Being a child spy is all very complicated. Did you know that they can only eat Turkey on Thanksgiving because otherwise they could be too tired to do their spy missions? True story.)

Anyway, Sashimi took the news of his frogs' demise much better than I expected. Which was good. Because the whole story was a load of crap.

Here is what really happened:

While having tea and cake with my friend Melanie and our three-year olds were playing together, her son came and asked if he could see the frogs. We could see one frog sitting on a rock in the tank. Knowing that we had two frogs, he asked where the other one was. I told him he was probably hiding, since that was what he always like to do. To try and appease this little boy's request, I opened the lid to the tank and lifted up a fake plant to see if the other frog was there.
And this is what I found:

Holy. Shit. Mother. Of. Crap.

Those are BONES.

I immediately put the plant back down and looked at my friend, gasping in a whisper: There are BONES under there!

She could not believe it. And then I showed her. And then we both looked at each other like WTF?!

I immediately thought I had been so neglectful that it had died ages ago and I didn't notice.

I tried to remember the last time I saw BOTH frogs in the tank, and I can honestly say that the last time I recall them both being in there was three weeks ago. We came back from the in-laws' place from Christmas and I noticed one of the frogs was a little gaunt and not moving. I wondered if he was dead, but I was pretty sure I saw his throat/gullet moving. I went to the pet store to get them some crickets, came home and dumped them in the tank. The crickets were gone by the next morning.

Was it possible that the frog died and decomposed to BONES in three weeks? No, I didn't friggin think so. The water was not murkey, the other frog was not illin' from any decomp in the water. Plus, I didn't see anything!! No dead bloated floating frog, nothing.

Then it dawned on me: that frog ATE his friend. Flippy ATE Floppy. Oh.My.God. ACK! ICK! You FAT MURDERING BASTARD!

Fatty McMurderson

Melanie's son, all the while patiently trying to figure out why we were gasping and whispering, asked where the other frog was. I let her handle this with her own son. She talked about the cycle of life and that sometimes in nature, animals eat each other. He was totally cool with that. He ran off an played with Keesadilla, not thinking anything of it.

Meanwhile, I looked at Melanie and whispered: "WHAT am I going to tell Sashimi??"

Melanie: Umn, you could tell him you're having frog legs for dinner?

After Melanie and her son left, I kept walking past the frog tank, completely freaked out. I looked at the remaining frog, all plump and smug. I kept whispering as I walked by the tank: You're a MURDERER! HANNIBAL TOAD!

I couldn't handle having this creepy plotting toad in my house. He looked at me with a half grin on his smug cannibalistic face, like "You're next, Cricket-bitch. Mwahahaha!"

I called my sisters. I called Tony. I called another friend. I just did not know what to do. All I could picture in my head was this demon frog hovering over the bones and sputtering "My own! My PRECIOUS!" while he ate his own friend. His ONLY friend.

Holy. Poop. My thoughts exactly. This was some CRAZY shit.

Coupled with the fact that we had found out last week that the only pet store in town (where I buy live crickets and worms to feed the frogs) is going out of business, I did not know what to do. The frogs were already close to their life expectancy. I couldn't get live food to feed Flippy anymore. I did not have any other frogs for him to attack. I did not want to become his next victim. I knew I had to euthanize him. And I had to do it fast before Sashimi came home.

This felt horrible to me, as much as I don't like murderous frogs, I don't like being a killer. I have never killed anything other than flies and mosquitoes. How do you euthanize a frog? I talked to my mom, and she said to flush him down the waterslide to heaven. ICK! But short of going all psycho on him and stabbing him or beheading him, that's all I could think of, too.

So I did it. I put him in the toilet bowl and flushed. And he swam like a bugger and almost didn't go down. I flushed about five more times. Little bubbles came out, and I swore he was just hiding in there, waiting to pounce. So I flushed again. And again.

I then took everything out of the tank and put it in the garbage. Then I dumped the water and put the tank outside to freeze and let Tony deal with in the spring. I looked at the clock: 4:00 pm. Sashimi would be home in 10 minutes. I calmed myself (and flushed the toilet a few more times) and thought of what I would tell him.

And I will never use that toilet again without pre-flushing.

First you get him a mickey of rum...

2012-01-15T07:51:00.000-08:00

After posting about my impending tubal ligation, I was asked by a friend why my husband was not getting a vasectomy. I'll admit, this is not the first time I've fielded this question. Most people do not understand: I went through four pregnancies, one miscarriage followed by two months of complications, one easy delivery (Keesadilla), one semi-complicated delivery (Sashimi), one dangerous birth (iBean). Haven't I been through enough? What can I say? I get off on being a martyr? No...that doesn't sound right. I'm a sucker for punishment? Uh-uh.
Last year, when I first brought up the subject with my family doctor, asking what needed to be done in order to get a referral or whatnot to get my tubes tied, he looked at me with serious eyes and said:

"First, you get a mickey of rum. Then you give it to Tony and tell him to grow a pair and get a vasectomy."

I burst out laughing. I love my doctor, but that was the first time I had ever heard him say something like that. I then explained that Tony is MORE than willing to get a vasectomy. I think he wants to be a baby and be catered to for a few days. Too bad, sucka! He used up those get out of housework cards when he screwed up his knee playing ball hockey and sprained his ankle for the 4th time. However, my logical process is this:
I am the one who has the health problems related to pregnancy. I am the one who should not have any more babies. If something were to happen to Tony (God forbid) and I ended up remarrying, I still should not have any more babies. However, if something happens to me (God forbid) and Tony remarries, he can procreate at will. He is a great dad, and if he wants to have more kids with a second wife, that is fine by me.*

Does this make sense? It does to me, but I know I can be a bit irrational sometimes. Especially when I lose things (Where the heck are my keys? TONY!! HAVE YOU SEEN MY KEYS? Oh for fuck's sake. I had them in my purse and now I can't find them. Freaking kids always moving my stuff around...fuck! I'm going to be LATE! WE'RE ALWAS LATE! I HATE BEING THAT FAMILY WHO IS ALWAYS LATE! Tony and your damn running on Mexico time all the time...Where the FRICK are they? *puts on jacket, feels in pocket* OH. NEVERMIND! I FOUND THEM!)

*Although after this very LONG Christmas break with Sashimi being home every.stinking.day and the boys doing an exorbitant amount of fighting and us doing more than our share of yelling and kicking some ass**, Tony says he is now sure that he does NOT want anymore kids...lol

**I do mean kicking ass metaphorically. We in no way kick our kids in the ass. Or anywhere else for that matter. Unless you're talking about Mario Kart. Then we sometimes kick Sashimi's ass.

Reflections

2012-01-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

One year ago I was eagerly waiting for iBean to master breastfeeding. Now, with mixed emotions, I await a pre-op appointment for a tubal ligation.
I don't really want to be done having babies. I would love to give iBean a little sister to play with. Heck, even a little brother to call "her baby" and force Barbie-time on him. Or tea party. But not Bratz or Monster High. WTF are those anyway? So wierd.
But my body really cannot handle another pregnancy. And so we have to call it quits.
On the one terrified hand, I have been living in fear of getting pregnant for the past year. Because of my continued hypertension, I cannot go on birth control pills. I was given the option of an IUD, but that does not appeal to me what.so.ever. I still have not had a period since iBean's birth, so it's not like I can even avoid sexy parties on certain ovulatory days. So we have been playing Russian Roulette with condoms. So far, so good.
On the other weepy hand, I sort of wished that I had fallen pregnant by accident. I could have tried to have another baby without all of the questions of "ARE YOU CRAZY? YOU COULD DIE!" and retorted: "WELL, WE USED CONDOMS' BUT THEY'RE ONLY, LIKE 98% EFFECTIVE." And then Ross screeches "THEY SHOULD PUT THAT ON THE BOX!"
See? No guilt there. I could say we tried to avoid it, but God obviously had other plans for us. Not our fault.
But they do put that on the box. And when used correctly, condoms work. Of course, being married to a health care professional means he ensures they work. Every. Time.
So when I went to get a renewal on my blood pressure medication last week, I asked the resident if I could be referred to a surgeon to get my tubes tied. I can't live in fear of pregnancy anymore, and I know that a pregnancy could very well kill me, my baby, or give me a stroke and leave me disabled, or give my baby a stroke and leave her disabled, or what the heck, all of the above. And, since iBean was born at 32 weeks, my chance of having another premature baby is high, and I could definitely live without another NICU experience. Not the the NICU was bad, in fact, the nurses were pretty awesome. It was just a very high-stress time for our whole family, even with iBean being a medical marvel.
There is the small chance that it could all go smilingly well and I could have a very uneventful pregnancy and a nice 7 1/2 lb baby like Keesadilla.
But the odds are not in my favour, particularly since my body never fully recovered from what happened with iBean, despite the specialists telling me that there was no reason that they could see that I wouldn't go back to being a normal 29-year old that doesn't need to be on blood pressure medication.
So I am going against my Catholic roots and having a medical procedure performed to prevent procreation. I've had a hard time with this one, but I have to believe that God would rather my children have their Mommy with them than be motherless with one more sibling.

The tale of how alcohol made me miss Christmas dinner

2011-12-25T20:09:00.000-08:00

I am not a big drinker. I was a bit of a drunk teenager and spent a great deal of money on alcohol and time drunk while I was seventeen. And maybe eighteen. Then I became a poor university student and alcohol was a luxury that I could not afford, so I rarely drank, and then got out of the habit of doing so, save the odd glass of ice wine.

Enter alcohol-infused whipping cream.
Read that line again: alcohol-INFUSED-whipping cream.
It's this aerosol can of whipping cream that has booze already in it. Ready to go.

Tony's sister brought over a few different alcoholic beverages for our Christmas festivus today, and a can of this whipping-cream. I had heard about it, but had never seen or tasted it. So I did what anyone else would do: I squirted a shot directly into my mouth. And it was good. 16% alcohol good!
I then grabbed a shot glass and filled it with the whipping cream in all its fluffy tastiness. And then I used my finger to scrape every last smear out of the glass. WOOT! That was some good stuff!
I decided to try something a little different for my next drink. I made myself a spiced rum and eggnog, topped with the whipping cream. That is a double whammy of taste and alcohol, not to mention calorific. Although it was light eggnog, so it's ~~all~~ mostly good.
Later in the afternoon, I made myself a glass of punch with vanilla vodka. The vodka had such a light taste that it seemed like I was drinking a virgin drink, so I chased it with more whipping cream. Directly into the mouth.
My mother-in-law asked if I could make the turkey gravy, which I sort of rock at, so I made the gravy. And had another shot of whipping cream while whisking. No biggie. I then tasted the gravy to see if it was good, and it totally was. Not to be confused with the quality of the goodness of the whipping cream. Both good in very different ways.
Then, out of NOWHERE, I got a stomach ache. Ugh. I fed iBean her supper, skipped out on mine and crouched in the living room with iBean. Ugh. Why was my tummy so mad at me? What did I do to it??

Oh. Right. Alcohol-infused whipping cream. Like half a canister-full.

Whoops.

My bad.
Or good. However you choose to look at it.

Penis Pointing Down

2011-12-18T10:47:00.000-08:00

We have a housecleaner. She works as a nanny for a family down the street and she moonlights as a housecleaner. She usually comes once every two weeks and does a whole once-over of the house. Sometimes, she even folds our laundry or does our dishes We LOVE her.

This weekend, she was busy with a community Christmas party and said she would not be able to make it. I cried a little inside, but then I thought "Suck it up, Princess! You know how to clean the house!" I washed the floor in our living area a couple of days ago, and I cleaned the kids' bathroom yesterday: toilet, tub (which is usually pretty clean), floor and sink. Two tasks: done.

I went into the kids' bathroom this morning to grab a facecloth and smelled PEE. That awful stench of morning urine crustified onto something in the bathroom. I had just cleaned the toilet yesterday, so I knew that the smell was not coming from within. I looked around the toilet - dried yellowish stuff all around the base. EVERYWHERE. Frick! So I grabbed a rag and started cleaning. I wiped the entire toilet down and cleaned around the base. I cleaned off the stool that Keesadilla uses to reach the toilet, and then left the bathroom.

I went back in to use the facilities about 10 minutes later. STENCH. STILL. THERE. WTF?! I cleaned the effing toilet already. And the floor! So I started sniffing like a bloodhound and saw pee all over the garbage can lid next to the toilet. Double Frick!! Grabbed another rag and wiped down the garbage can, emptied the garbage bag. Then I lifted the cannister: big puddle of yellow liquid underneath. FUCKITY FUCK!! How many places can a kid pee in such a small bathroom? So I washed the entire garbage cannister and the floor beneath. Convinced that I had finally solved the pee-problem, I left.

About 20 minutes later, Sashimi had to use the bathroom. He walked in and exclaimed: "MOMMY! It smells AWFUL in here!"

I ran back in. Sure enough, it still smelled just as rank as before. Did a skunk pee in here or something? I cleaned everything! Except the bath mat. ARGHHHH! Seriously? I stripped the entire bathroom of every possible towel, facecloth, bath mat, or other garment that may or may not have been peed on. I turned on the fan. I washed the entire floor. Again.

After I emerged from urine-hell, I asked the boys in a nice calm fashion:
"WHO PEED ALL OVER THE FLOOR??? IT IS DISGUSTING IN YOUR BATHROOM!"
Sashimi pointed at Keesadilla: "It was him. I saw him do it."
Me: And you just let him pee all over the place?
S: Well, I told him to put his penis pointing down, but he didn't listen to me.
Me: Can you please show him HOW to point it down so that we don't have pee all over the place?
S: No, it's too hard, Mommy.

I am done with this. One brother watches as the other brother spackles the bathroom with piss and I am left to clean it all up. I may as well just put a big effing drain in the floor and have the floor slope towards it. That'd probably be just as useful as a toilet and much easier to clean.
Or forbid my housecleaner from ever going to a Christmas party agan.
Bah. Humbug. Urine.

All is forgiven

2011-12-09T13:16:00.001-08:00

It's no secret that iBean is not a good sleeper. She has her moments, but she still wakes two or three (four or five) times a night.

Last night, she went six hours before waking, which is quite good for her. I went in and nursed her, then she went back to sleep.

Three hours later, iBean woke up again. I went in, nursed her, fell asleep in the chair while nursing, then upon waking half an hour later, put her back in her crib. Only she was not tired. She was WIDE awake. At 4:30 am. Not being one to put up with such shenanigans as waking up at 4:30 am for the day, I left her to squak and talk in her crib while I tried to catch some more z's.

After 30 minutes of quacking, I reluctantly went in when she progressed to full-on crying. I walked into her room, picked her up, and she said "Mama!" for the very first time.

I cuddled and nursed her (again) and smiled in my state of groggy bliss, forgeting all about the fact that she was just being a turd.

Bedtime Cuddles

2011-12-08T08:01:00.001-08:00

While cuddling with Keesadilla before bed, he was adjusting the covers and I got a huge whiff of something foul.

Me: Keesadilla, did you fart?
Keesadilla: No. I think it was you.
Me: Umn, NO. I didn't fart. That was you.
Keesadilla: No, I think it was YOU. I smell you ALL DAY!

No arguing that with. Although, for the record, that bedtime bomb was NOT me.

Is this really how it's going to be today??

2011-12-01T10:10:00.000-08:00

Things that have happened to me today thus far:
1. Keesadilla climbed into the tub with me and peed in my bath. Then he farted in my face.
2. My screen on my iPod won't rotate when I turn my iPod 90˚. I've turned it on and off, resynched it. Nothing. Friggin crappy touch screens. It's only two weeks old!
3. iBean pooped all over the floor while naked and laying on her tummy. Then she did a couple of 360s on her tummy. She had poop from knees to nipples. And now it is all smeared into the carpet in her room.
4. I can't get the frickin Portable North Pole videos that I made for the boys to work. I have all the required add-ons and plug ins and Java script yadda yadda. But all I get is a black screen when I click on the URL for their individual videos. So unless Santa is sitting in a black room using sign language to get his message across, I am pretty sure the videos are not working.
5. It is only 11 am. FML.
Happy December 1st!

First Report Card

2011-11-17T09:21:00.000-08:00

Sashimi came home with his first ever report card. It was a whole lot of awesome. I just wanted to share the teacher's comments at the end (translation to follow):

"Sashimi est un élève modèle. Il écoute, il participe et il suit les consignes. Sashimi est confiant alors il pose des questions et ose prendre des risques. Sashimi fait de grands efforts pour parler en français et prend le temps nécessaire pour trouver les mots lorsqu'il s'exprime. Bravo! En mathématiques, Sashimi a une excellente compréhension des concepts des régularités et de trier des objets. C'est un plaisir d'enseigner à votre fils."

English:

Sashimi is a model student. He listens, he participates and follows instructions. Sashimi is confident so he asks questions and is comfortable taking risks. Sashimi makes great efforts to speak in French and takes the time required to find the right words when expressing himself. Bravo! In mathematics, Sashimi has an excellent comprehension of the concepts relating to patterns and classifiying (sorting) objects. It is a pleasure to teach your son.

AND IT WAS A PLEASURE TO GET THIS KIND OF REPORT CARD! WOOT!
Now how do I get him to listen and follow instructions at home?

A tale of two nights

2011-11-05T06:50:00.000-07:00

My night:
11:00 pm - Get into bed, play around on iMovie for awhile, look at iBean's preemie NICU photos
11:30 pm - lights out
2:30 am - iBean wakes to feed. She has a fever and is hot like bacon. She drinks a LOT. Put her back in her crib. Go back to my bed.
2:50 am - iBean starts crying again. Go in, give her baby advil. Cuddle her, put her back in her crib.
3:00 am - iBean cries again. Go back in to her room, pick her up and rock her in my arms. She finally falls asleep on my chest, so I bring her to my bed.
3:30 am - My neck is killing me with Ivy propped in my arms. I ask Tony to grab me another pillow to prop my head up.
3:30 am - iBean moans, groans, shifts in my arms, sleeps quietly for 5 minutes or so. Repeat incessantly for 2 hours.
5:30 am - I take iBean to her room and nurse her again. Put her in her crib. She seems to have settled.
6:00 am - Back to my bed!
6:51 am - iBean wakes up for the day. She doesn't know she has a fever and wants to play. I give her tylenol. Look for the damn thermometer. Where the FUCK is it?! Why can I NEVER find the stupid thing when someone actually needs it?! Oh well, she feels like she's not quite hot-tub warm. Probably comfortable bath warm. Around 38.5˙C. Not emergency room hot.
7:10 am - make COFFEE. Eat sugary cereal. iBean munches on cereal biscuit.

Tony's night:
11:30 pm - goes to sleep.
3:30 am - Gets Sarah a pillow. Probably doesn't remember doing it.
7:49 am - Still sleeping.

Whatever, man. WHATEVER.

Parkwork

2011-10-31T19:36:00.000-07:00

Keesadilla has a favourite park in town: Kinsmen Park. It is his favourite park because

there are two "parks" within one large space
there are usually not very many kids there, so he gets the park all to himself.

It is not my favourite park because

it is not within walking distance of our house
it is in the middle of some cosmic wind tunnel
there never seem to be any other kids there, so no other parents to visit with.
there are too many fallen leaves for iBean to put in her mouth, then choke on, then barf up later

But once in a while, I indulge Keesadilla's persistent requests to go to Kinsmen park. Today was one of them.
Today was my lucky day, as there was reading material for me when I arrived:

Are kids really still graffitiing about Michael Jackson?

Hmm...bitch'zs. Is that like a boring bitch that makes you snore?

Your mom's vagina brought you into this world. RESPECT THE VAGINA!

I have no words. This offends me as a grammar nazi.

Do they mean Pension of dicks? Or Prism? Or Prison? I need some context here, people.

Graffiti irritates me. So what if "Mort was here!!" And I know how to have a good time by myself, I don't need to "Call Jessica for a good time!" But grammatically errant graffiti pisses the hell out of me. I took these five photos with my phone, but I could have taken a whole roll of film (am I dating myself by saying that?!). There were apostrophes where there shouldn't be, the classic your/you're debaucles and some strange punctuation usages making me think the vandal may have been Spanish. Don't forget the anatomically lacking penis and testicles, lacking so much that the artist had to write "penis" next to it, lest the observer think it is a rocket or a nose with hairy eyes.
Graffiti also pisses me off because although Keesadilla cannot read, Sashimi is starting to, and I don't want to have to explain to him why the word vagina is plastered all over the park.
RESPECT THE VAGINA.

Bazinga!

2011-10-30T21:56:00.000-07:00

I am not very artistic. There. I've said it. I can draw stick-men like nobody's biz-NESS, but when it comes to actual, you know, art, I am not so good.

My husband, he draws good and stuff. He actually took art in school, and by school I mean high school. He still has a folder of all his sketches and ~~dot-a-ma-thingies~~ pointillisms and that sort of thing. He does not do much of it anymore. He doodles for the kids and can draw a mean dinosaur by Sashimi's standards.
And when it comes to carving pumpkins, he rocks.

For Keesadilla, he carved his Backyardigan pal Pablo:

Hi, I'm Pablo!

Sashimi did his own pumpkin this year, start to finish, by himself. He even added a little scar under the eye much later because he thought it would be spookier:

Definitely getting the art genes from his father!

And then Tony did a pumpkin for himself:

Dr. Sheldon Cooper - one of the most brilliant minds of the 21st century

Did I mention that he did this without using a stencil? Who's one of the most brilliant minds of the 21st centur NOW?!

Coolest AND nerdiest pumpkin you will ever see.

Bazinga!

My Killer Macaroni & Cheese

2011-10-24T20:37:00.000-07:00

Apparently, one cannot describe one's macaroni and cheese as "killer" without one's peeps asking for the recipe.

As my family knows, I am not much for recipes. It used to drive me crazy when I would get a recipe from my Baba only to discover a few years later that she doesn't actually use that recipe anymore because she had "improved" it. Now I understand. Recipes for me are "guidelines" that are meant to be toyed with and continually improved upon. Cooking is an ART. Many times my mother-in-law has asked me what I put in my chicken gravy and each time the answer is different, but the end result is always a fantastic gravy that my kids (and husband) could drink from a cup. Sashimi actually asked me for a mug when I made some last weekend, but that is another story.

So here is the Basic Macaroni & Cheese recipe, followed by the alterations I have done to it.

2 cups elbow macaroni, uncooked
1 medium onion, finely chopped
4 tbsp butter
4 tbsp all purpose flour
2 1/2 cups milk - don't be fat conscious, use 2% or whole milk ;)
3 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Cook the pasta in boiling water until almost al dente. You want it to be a little firmer than normal because you are going to be cooking it further in the oven.
Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the chopped onion. Fry the onions on med-low heat to really soften them up and carmelize them a bit, it takes about 10 minutes. Add flour to the onions and butter - this is your roux. Add the milk and whisk over medium heat until it boils and thickens. Remove from heat. Add 2 cups of the cheese, then season with salt and pepper to taste.
Pour over the macaroni and mix well. Pour into a greased oven-proof baking dish (a 9X13 works) and top with remaining shredded cheese. Bake at 350˚F for 20 minutes.

What I have done to make it KILLER:

Add paprika, ground mustard powder, parsley and granulated garlic to the white sauce (before adding cheese). I really don't measure.
I may use more cheese than the recipe asks for. Again, I go by looking. Considering how much I like cheese, I'd say that's a safe bet.
If your kids are fussy over onions, you can put them in the blender or magic bullet to make them into a purée before frying them. It will affect the frying time, but then you keep the onion flavour without having your kids turn their noses up at the sight of something NOT macaroni-like on their plate.
If you really don't want to use actual onion in the sauce, you can add onion powder when you play around with the spices that I mentioned above.
Whole wheat pasta is healthier, but I have found that for this dish, my kids will gobble up white pasta over whole wheat. They eat WW spaghetti all the time, but I think the WW is too different from classic Kraft Dinner, and they are not so willing to eat it.
If you want to sneak some veggies into your kids' bellies, add half of a roasted butternut squash to the cheese sauce just before you season with salt and pepper. Use a hand-blender to blend the sauce. The squash goes really well with the sauce and is completely undetectable by kids. Trust me, I've done it and my kids are none the wiser.
Want a different taste? Fry the onion with diced BACON and reserve 4 tbsp of bacon drippings to mix with your flour instead of butter. You can top it with chives before you pop it into the oven. Isn't everything better with bacon?

There you have it! Play around with this and make it your own :)

Armpits

2011-10-24T08:44:00.000-07:00

My kids love Kraft Dinner. They love it so much that they ask for it on a regular basis and will not eat homemade macaroni and cheese (even though mine is KILLER).

Tony and I are very conscious about eating real food and as much homemade as possible, so making Kraft Dinner just eats me up inside, particularly since my homemade macaroni is KILLER. So I went out on a limb this weekend and tried something new: I bought alphabet pasta: the teeny little noodles that go great in homemade soups. I put them in some chicken soup and the kids loved them, so I thought I would make some homemade macaroni and cheese using those tiny letters. I made the cheese sauce with sharp cheddar, some spices and half of a roasted butternut squash, which gave the sauce an amazing colour and did not really affect the cheesy taste.

The result was KILLER. Sashimi was skeptical, but he tried it. Once he tasted it, he asked for more. Then another bowl full. He looked at me in all earnest and said: Mommy, this is great! It tastes like armpit...it tastes like armpit macaroni!"

*Insert WTF?! face here.*

Then I realized what he meant: "Elbow macaroni?"

Sashimi: Oh yeah, that's what I meant.

It seems I make good armpit pasta. Who knew.

-----------

Did I mention that my homemade macaroni and cheese is KILLER?

Oh PlanetBox, I heart you

2011-10-03T16:08:00.000-07:00

We generally try to stay away from pre-packaged foods and opt for homemade and fresh foods instead. Packing a lunch for Sashimi used to entail looking through the cupboard for containers and their matching lids, put all the food in appropriately sized containers, then trying all sorts of configurations to get the damn things to fit in his lunchkit, then realizing that one container just won't fit and resorting to unpacking his lunch, changing containers and trying the whole process over again.

Now, I have a PlanetBox.

Sashimi's lunch for tomorrow: A balanced lunch made in less than 5 minutes.
Each side compartment holds 3/4 cup, making it the perfect size for fruit or veg. 1/2 cup is equal to one serving, so if you fill those, that's three servings right there. The large compartment is for your main, which today for Sashimi is Dempsters Ancient Grains wraps filled with jam and pea butter (his school is nut-free), 10-grain mini muffin, a pepperoni stick and a few BBQ Crispers. The long compartment just above has a cheese string (the only kind of cheese he will eat) and another roll up. And in the tiny middle compartment, Skittles. That compartment is just the right size for a few chocolate chips or smarties. A small amount of sweets goes a long way for kids.

And then, when I close the lid, all the compartments stay separated: no mixing foods!

Closed for fridge-time: foods stay segregated

The box is made out of high grade stainless steel, and has specially shaped magnets that stick to the outside. They have about a dozen different designs. I bought 2 different sets (I think one was included with his box, and the other cost $2) so Sashimi can choose which ones to use. His only complaint was that they did not have dinosaur magnets.

Then, when he is ready to take it to school, it goes in this insulated carrying case:

There is room for a water bottle and a larger item (like a large fruit) or ice-pack in the exterior pouches

There are also a couple of round containers that fit inside the Box, if you want to take dip for your veggies, or a larger one if you wanted to take a yogurt parfait or pasta salad. Sacha likes neither of these, so the containers are not used much right now.

The whole ensemble set me back about $55. That being said, I never have to look for containers, never have to buy ziploc bags or saran wrap, it is easy for Sashimi to open and close (unlike when he would have to ask for help with various lids and baggies). I don't have to worry about whether the plastic has BPA in it (no plastic = no worries) and I can get a clear visual every day that his lunch is well balanced and healthy.

And it comes home pretty much empty every night.

Bon appetit!

Wordless Weds: Sexy Time Tomatoes

2011-09-27T23:28:00.000-07:00

The vag and penis tomatoes

This is how we breed tomatoes

Wordless Wednesday: Why Daddies Shouldn't Dress their Daughters

2011-09-13T17:36:00.000-07:00

WTF Daddy?! These are supposed to be PANTS, not 80s-style baggy leggings...

18 days

2011-09-13T01:57:00.000-07:00

18 days can change your world.

Day 1: Ivy was born at 32 weeks 5 days gestation, weighing 3 lbs 9 oz. She spent the first 2 hours of her life intubated, then simply on room air.
Day 4 & 5: Ivy spent most of her time in phototherapy to keep her bilirubin levels down.
Day 5: Ivy nursed for the first time.
Day 6: her IV was removed as she had been taking her NG feeds so well that she did not require TPN (the mixture of lipids and proteins that preemies get via IV) anymore.
Day 8: she was prepared for transfer to a different hospital since she was doing so well. On day 9 we flew in an airplane, her in her isolette, to a NICU closer to home.
Day 15, her NG tube was removed as she was nursing full feeds at every feed.
Day 17 she failed her carseat test. That was the only fail Ivy had in the NICU.
Day 18, she passed her carseat test and she was discharged, weighing 4 lbs 0.5 ounces and only 35 weeks 2 days gestation.

I have a friend that I have never met in real life. She started commenting on my blog about three years ago, and I started reading her blog. We started writing back and forth and we are facebook friends.
I knew how much she and her husband wanted a baby. They struggled with infertility for a couple of years until she finally was able to get pregnant. Her writing exuded her elation over the pregnancy and she was counting down the weeks until she would be a mother.
Suddenly, at 30 and a half weeks, she went into labour and delivered a beautiful baby girl, Rory Rose, in an ambulance en route to the hospital. Miraculously, the baby not only survived, but was thriving. Having had a preemie myself, I was so excited to be able to share that experience with someone. I gave her tips that worked for me, and offered to send her copies of my preemie books (as I was no longer using them). She posted photos of the two of them doing kangaroo care, and of her reading a book to her while they bonded skin-to-skin. After seven days of bliss, Rory became seriously ill with what the doctors said was necrotizing enterocolitis.
Day 9: Rory crashed twice, requiring CPR both times to be revived.
Day 10: Rory seemed to settle into a groove of stability. Her bowels were still questionable, but she was stable. The doctors advised that they would do surgery when she was strong enough to be transported to another hospital and handle the surgery.
Day 12: Rory was improving and surprising doctors left, right and center.
Day 13: The doctors noticed that Rory had suffered a brain bleed and that there could be brain damage.
Day 15: Rory’s brain bleed was very severe and half of her brain was dead. It was also swelling and putting pressure on the other side of her brain. There was nothing the doctors could do for her other than manage her pain. She opened her eyes and looked at her mommy and daddy for about 15 minutes that evening.
On day 18, Rory went to be with Jesus.

I cannot help but look at my Ivy and feel both blessed and guilty. Ivy had such an easy NICU experience that I took for granted. I never once thought that anything bad would happen. I did not know that NEC is not uncommon among preemies. I knew that preemies were more susceptible to brain bleeds, but I never even contemplated the idea that it was even a risk for Ivy. I guess with all the trouble I was having with my own health, I just assumed that Ivy would be fine no matter what, and I was determined to get her out of the NICU and home as fast as we could.

In 18 days, your world can change.
I wish that every preemie baby could go home with their mommy and daddy in 18 days. I wish that Katie could have held her sweet baby girl without all the tubes and alarms and nursed her to chubbiness. I wish she could still be reading her stories while she made sweet sleepy sounds on her chest. I wish that she would have been able to arrange all her clothes in her closet by age and by colour. I wish that she would have been able to try on her cow-print cloth diapers on her and squeal with delight when she saw how cute they were and how big they would make her bum look.

I wish she would not be going home to a baby’s room filled with hopes and dreams that will never be fulfilled.

I’m so sorry.