I figured that Liliana and I would try to be productive on our first day of just the two of us. We went to sign the girls up for swimming lessons only to find that at the three pools closest to us, all the classes for Liliana’s age were FULL. Awesome. We signed Kaylie up and I told Liliana that I’d take her swimming myself, as she was quite disappointed that we didn’t get to sign her up. I DESPISE putting on a bathing suit and going into what Noah calls “people soup”, but the kid loves to swim, so I’m going to take her swimming. We also hit up the library (INTERNET!), Walmart, and Old Navy.

Running errands with just one child is SO easy. Alone, both my kids are pretty easy to have around. Together, well, let’s just say that they’ve got a little bit of togetherness cabin fever. This back-to-school thing could not have come soon enough.

There’s not a whole lot happening that I’m missing blogging about except that this weekend my youngest brother Brandon and his wife Roxanne are coming to visit and we’re pretty stoked to see them. We’re heading to the zoo and going geocaching. If hell freezes over, I’ll even write about it! With pictures!

Being cut off from the internet when you live in a new place where you know NOBODY makes for a very lonely existance. It reminded me of the time last fall when my marriage fell apart and then I was diagnosed with Lupus and then they said JUST KIDDING! It’s just arthritis! No wait. Never mind. We really have no idea why you’re all puffy and splotchy and why random limbs all of a sudden double in size but here, let us hook you up to an EKG for six hours and then make you leave the hospital with a horrific stomach bug in addition to everything else which will cleanse you of all the fluids that were in your body and make you run to the bathroom and wonder do I sit or do I put my head in the toilet bowl or do I grab a bucket so I can do both? All this while I was going through a very antisocial time and I was working 60 hours a week and I’d shut down my blog after a nervous breakdown and I just didn’t know what to do with myself anymore.

It’s kind of like that but without the marriage problems and without the 60-hour work weeks and without being wrongly diagnosed with a terrifying disease. As much fun as that was.

Since I mostly interact with my friends online (or by text message) (I’m not much of a phone person), not being online means that I miss posts about babies being born (or not born) and really, seeing photos of newborns and reading birth stories is how I got addicted to this Internet thing in the first place.

At least withdrawal from the internet isn’t as bad as withdrawal from antidepressants. There are no lightning bolts in my brain and I’m not vibrating and I’m not seeing things that aren’t there. (Or are they?)

I was up half the night with Liliana, which is not normal. Don’t hate me for saying this, but she’s always been a great sleeper. From Day 1. She never had her days and nights mixed up and has been sleeping 12-hour stretches (with brief feeding breaks when she was really tiny) since she was 12 weeks old. So, when she wakes up in the middle of the night crying or screaming, it’s obvious that something is wrong. She was given some Tylenol two nights ago and again last night because I didn’t know what else to do. She also ended up in bed with me and I am not a fan of co-sleeping. I’m selfish and I like my space and I like my kids to be in their own beds. Unless they’re sick.

She woke up this morning barely able to speak and sounded pretty hilarious. Noah decided to stay home with her since I only work two days a week and didn’t want to miss a day and he works outside and it’s supposed to feel like 38C (100F) outside and heatstroke just isn’t all that fun. (Both of us love staying home with them, so we usually either take turns or decide what makes the most logical sense.) (Or who’s more likely to get scorched by the sun.) Today was supposed to be Kaylie’s last day of daycare before she starts school next Tuesday, but I’m pretty sure she’s happier to spend the day with her dad.

It’s hard to tell sometimes whether Liliana’s sick or not because she doesn’t let anything hold her back. She ate her breakfast just fine and was quite chipper as they drove me to work this morning. Noah then took her to get checked out and she apparently has swollen tonsils and an ear infection. Poor kid. I checked in on her early this afternoon and Noah said that she’s almost completely lost her voice, which means that he’s not had to deal with much fighting or yelling today, which really isn’t all that fair but I guess I should feel special that my children save their fighting and yelling for when I’m home with them and Daddy is at work.

I hope you’ll forgive me for my lack of blog reading and commenting and writing and that you’ll be patient while I try get through this horrible internet-less time. First-world problems are so harsh.

Have you entered to win that cruise yet? WELL WHY NOT?

My in-laws like to travel. To anyone that knows them personally, this is not a shocking revelation. As a side-job, my mother-in-law Sue is a Cruise & Vacation Specialist. The company she works for, Expedia Cruise Ship Centers, is giving away 25 free 4-day cruises for two to the Bahamas with Norwegian Cruise Lines.

There are no entry fees or annoying spam emails. So, go! Enter! Bring me as your guest if you win!

Contest closes October 4, 2010.

Fine print: Contest is open to all residents of the United States, Canada and Mexico (excluding areas where prohibited by law) being of the age of majority or older in the province or state in which they reside. Employees and their immediate families of CruiseShipCenters International Inc., its Franchisees, affiliates and subsidiaries, their respective employees, independent contractors, commissioned employees, and participating contest sponsors are not eligible.

Winner must be 21 years or older and posses a valid passport. Airfare and hotel accommodations not included. Prize Not on Epic.

Noah and his mom took the girls to Manitoba this weekend which means that I have two and a half days of much-needed stress-free quiet and I have to figure out how to fill it. We’re STILL not completely unpacked, so there’s that. And sleeping in. And NOT getting anyone breakfast. And NOT getting yelled at buy a three-year-old.

Also? Chuck marathon. And Bethany suggested Castle and White Collar and everything she’s recommended in the past has quickly become a favorite, so I’ll probably pick those up while I’m hanging out at the library with all the cool people ON A FRIDAY NIGHT.

I’m definitely one of those people who is scared of the dark and gets creeped out when she’s in the house all by herself, but there’s someone living downstairs, so I’m not completely alone. And I’ll probably sleep with all the lights on so that I can see that creepy guy that Russ SO KINDLY REFERENCED last Sunday. Complete with sound effects. If I get a phone call in the middle of the night from an unlisted number, I’LL KNOW IT’S YOU, MISTER.

I may have mentioned before that I don’t deal with stress well. At all. Not even a little bit.

The kids are getting a little tired of being together all day every day and school is still two weeks away. The girls now have separate rooms and Kaylie is of the opinion that she can go into Liliana’s room whenever she wants and touch anything that she wants, but if Liliana goes into her room then ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE and I hear “MOM! LILIANA’S IN MY ROOM!” I ask her if she goes into Liliana’s room without asking. “Yes.” Then why can’t Liliana go into your room without asking? “I don’t know.”

It’s been raining a lot here which means that outside time has been at an all-time low for summer. We have a bigger place here than we did in Regina, but still being cooped up inside most of the summer has made us have a bit of cabin fever.

When Liliana stopped napping, I still made her spend her “nap” time in her room as “quiet time”. Since moving here, quiet time has been anything but quiet. She needs her closet opened. She needs her music back on. She needs a drink. She needs to go pee for the 482nd time and I don’t feel like cleaning up an accident when I don’t believe her the one time she actually has to go.

Liliana will NOT. STOP. YELLING. Kaylie will NOT. STOP. PUSHING. HER. BUTTONS. Even when button-pushing is not going on, Liliana will still find some reason to make the entire neighborhood hear how hard her life is because someone didn’t say “you’re welcome” after she said “thank you”.

I’m going a little nutso.

I’m ready for the routine of fall. I’m ready for Kaylie to be back at school. I’m ready to enjoy my three one-kid weekdays that I don’t work. I’m ready for my anxiety level to be a little lower.

The girls and I took off to the park after dinner this evening.

They needed outdoor time and I needed start-my-new-book time.

It was more short-lived than we would have liked because during a game of hide-and-seek with some other park kids, Kaylie fell off the highest point of the play structure. She’s alright, just a couple scrapes and bruises. On the way home, Liliana kept staying, “It’s alright Kaylie. We’ll take care of you.” That kid sure screams a lot, but she’s also very sensitive and hates to see others hurting. When Kaylie was crying, Liliana started to cry and yelled at Kaylie to STOP CRYING.

I’m going to be glad when this day is over.

I like my job but I dread leaving the house in the morning.

My laptop screen is mostly dead. It works for an hour or so a day – after much effort to get it on in the first place.

I’m completely anti-social.

I miss my Regina friends.

I can’t take any more of Liliana’s baby talk.

Or tantrums.

I still haven’t completely unpacked.

I’m hungry but everything I look at turns my stomach.

I ate four hot dogs yesterday.

All I want to do is curl up on the couch with Season 3 of ER.

Or Season 2 of Bones.

Maybe with a rice bowl from Bad Ass Jacks.

With extra sauce.

My super-long (two-day) work week is over and I get to spend the next five days with my two very favorite people.

I know I’ll get out of this funk eventually, but if I try really hard at it, I sink deeper into the pit.

Baby steps.

So, THANK YOU! (You know who you are!)

Do you see that little speck on Liliana’s shirt? It’s not leftover dinner. (That’s what’s on her face.) It’s a mosquito.

They are INSANE this year and there’s been some West Nile going around from them as well. July was so uncharacteristically wet that they’ve bred like mad and now we can’t go outside for more than 3.2 seconds without getting 482 bites. Thankfully, August is supposed to be proper prairie weather so maybe they’ll back off a little bit.

That is all.

Everything in the salad I pulled out of the garden that our landlords planted for us. They’re incredible! They asked if I’d be using it this year and I said no, they could go ahead. They went and planed half of it for us – lettuce, carrots, and onions. SO delicious.

I don’t know that I’ll be able to eat grocery store produce after this!

I’d like to know why Liliana can abstain from using the washroom on a 4.5-hour car trip but can’t go 5 minutes during her (not-so-) quiet time.

I’m working on getting all my old archives public again. I’m going through the posts one by one and resizing all the photos because I’m paranoid and there are a lot of creepy people out there. I’m not afraid of my photos being stolen, I’m afraid of my photos of my children being stolen. 107 posts down, 958 to go!

Also, I’ve been slacking on the photo editing lately, so I’m posting them to my Flickr stream as I edit them. They’re over there on the new sidebar badge thinger. (Vancouver trip photos and lake photos are being added slowly.)

A couple nights ago, Noah asked Liliana to crawl into bed. So she got on her hands and knees and crawled into bed.

Anyone go to Pacey-Con this year? Heard it was exciting. (Link is to a spoof-ish video Joshua Jackson did at Comic-Con this year. I was a hardcore Dawson’s Creek fan in my teenage years.)

Noah was putting Liliana’s bathing suit on before he took both girls to the splash park. As he was trying to figure out how to put it on her, he asked, “Do you guys put bathing suits on from the bottom?”

Kaylie’s love of reading has been heightened this summer with new books for her birthday and new library books. Her favorite thing to do is lock herself in her (own!) room and read for hours. I don’t object to this.

Liliana is still a puppy and crawls around on all fours making puppy sounds and panting – she actually sounds like a dog. I’ve learned to use this against her to get her to do things she would otherwise object to, like telling her that her non-nightgown pajamas are for dancing puppies. (she’s been demanding preferring dresses/skirts lately because she likes to “dance like a princess”). So far she’s bought it.

I’m pretty sure Kaylie’s on the countdown until school starts up again. Her little sister loves to do everything she does and be everywhere she is. There are many times where this goes well. There are also many times where this ends in crying, yelling, and time-outs.

I’m trying to spend most of this weekend finally getting the house completely unpacked and organized, which is really hard to do when you’re as extremely lazy as I am; and when it’s really hot outside and all I want to do is curl up on the couch with a handful of freezies and a couple episodes of ER.

Today is a holiday here. Saskatchewan Day. I’m pretty sure it’s just a made-up holiday to get another day off work, but who cares! It’s a day where you don’t have to work but you still get paid! And any day like that is a GOOD day.

We didn’t have time on Monday to hit the beach by the camp, so we made sure to hit it today after we got Kaylie.

I got my tattoo touched up two weeks ago and kind of realized I wasn’t supposed to be submerging it after it was already submerged. Whoops. Oh well. It felt SO GOOD to have my feet in a lake again. It’s a rare time when I miss Terrace, but being in that lake made me miss Lakelse pretty bad.

While bathing Liliana, Noah called me in to show me that she’d been sunburned. I didn’t believe it because I’d lathered her in sunscreen. Apparently I missed a spot. Parenting fail. Whoops. Poor sensitive-skinned kid. I don’t worry about sunscreen so much with Kaylie’s dark Portuguese skin, but the younger one’s a different story.

I got a bunch more photos, even though we only spent an hour at the beach. I wish we had more time there, but I wanted to make it back to Saskatoon in time for Liliana to be in bed on time. More photos to come. You’d understand my exhaustion (and therefore laziness) if you’ve ever spent 10 hours in a confined space with one Liliana Wilson Pony.