bedtime for the boys started out pretty normal tonight. diapers changed, pajamas on, and teeth brushed, we went into Logan’s room to put him to bed first. as usual, Zander helped us sing “rock-a-bye Logan”, and then yelled “bounce!” as daddy plopped Logan in the crib. i said “sweet dreams, sleep well, see you in the morning!”, blew kisses from the doorway, and closed his door. then it was off to Zander’s room.

that’s when the bedtime routine too a sharp left.

i was giving Zander the usual hugs and kisses before putting him to bed when he looked me in the eye with a quizzical look

Zander: mommy…do you have a penis?

my jaw dropped to the floor. i looked towards Carlos to see his jaw was right down there with mine.

me: [stiffleing a giggle] no, i don’t have a penis. only boys have penises.

Zander: does daddy have a penis?

daddy: [grinning mischievously] yup…daddy has a big penis.

Zander: does mommy have a big penis?

me: no…mommies don’t have penises. only boys have a penis. you have a penis, Logan has a penis and daddy has a penis. but girls don’t have penises. they have vaginas.

Zander: [very serious about learning the truth] oh.

where that came from, i have no idea. what i can tell you is that i was so not expecting that.

seriously…where do they get this stuff?

note: i wrote this before i know there was theme for Haiku Friday this week. please forgive me, but i needed to vent about being a woman. i will be sure to follow the theme next time.

i was so lucky
no pms to speak of
never had a cramp

been told no mood swings
no bloating or discomfort
but it wouldn’t last

come back to bite me
with these head-splitting migraines
payback, you’re a BITCH!

is was so lucky, and i took it for granted. and oh, am i paying for it now!

i went through high school never having been bothered by my period…other than the inconvenience of the bulky pads available in the late 80’s. mind you, every once in a while i would feel a little nauseated on the first day, but that’s it. and this continued through my 20s and early 30s. okay…i can here you yelling nasty names at me….just get it out of your system now so i can proceed with my pity party story.

i’ve been told that i don’t have mood swings during that time of the month. hubby even asked me after we’d been living together for about a year if i would plot my cycles on the calendar so he would know when i was having it because he couldn’t tell…just so he would know when it was appropriate to try and put the moves on me.

when i was late in my pregnancy with Zander, i asked my doctor what contractions would feel like when they started. she told me they would feel like period cramps. i told her i’d never had any. by the look on her face, she thought i was lying. seriously people…never. one. cramp.

well, i’m now paying for all those carefree years. about 7 months ago i started getting migraines with my cycle. they start either the day before or on the first day of my period. they last anywhere from 2-4 days. and they are excruciating. i’m talking jam-something-sharp-through-my-eye-socket-and-into-my-brain-and-then-wiggle-it-around in-there kind of pain.

during these migraines, i can hardly take care of the boys, let alone myself. i never knew how noisy they were until each little sound felt like a cleaver cutting into my skull. or how much light the curtains in the living room still let through when they’re closed. or how many toys we have that make all types of seizure inducing noise. or how fucking bright this laptop monitor is!

this whole thing has forced me to not make plans anywhere near my expected monthly. unfortunately, my crystal ball isn’t always clear.

as some of you know, i am a big time paper-crafter and card-maker, and am a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator to make a little cash to support my hobby. in recent months, i have lost my passion. i’m trying to get it back, because when i’m doing it i am so happy. damn ppd.

anyhoo, a few months ago i signed up to attend a convention in Ottawa for Canadian demonstrators. i’ve been so excited about it…until last week when i realized it landed at the start of my cycle. the convention is tomorrow. sure enough, my period started yesterday…and so did my migraine. i’ve been trying to complete some cards for a swap i’m going to be participating in tomorrow, while my head is threatening to split in half and my eyeballs feel like they are liquifying.

this is the second day of my migraine, and i’m praying that i will wake up tomorrow and it will be gone. but i’m not holding out too much hope.

oh payback…you are a cold-hearted bitch!

did you ever read those mr. men and little miss books when you were younger? you know the ones…Little Miss Sunshine, Mr. Fussy, etc., written by British author Roger Hargreaves. i did. i loved them.

well, i have an idea for a book to add to the collection. i would name it “mr. contrary”, and it would be inspired by someone very close to my heart. ( i won’t name names…Zander!)

here’s how my story would go.

once upon a time there was a little boy named Zander mr. contrary. he always had to do the opposite of everyone else, say the opposite of everyone else, or just plain disagree with everyone for the sake of disagreeing.

one day, Zander mr. contrary was playing with his mommy. mommy asked “do you want to build a tower with lego blocks?”. Zander mr. contrary said “no, i don’t want to play with lego blocks!”, so his mommy said “okay.”. then Zander mr. contrary whined said “but i wanna build a tower with lego blocks!!!”. his mommy rolled her eyes said “great! lets start building!”.

after lunch when his mommy was putting Zander mr. contrary down for his nap, she said ” i love you!”. Zander mr. contrary said “i don’t want to love mommy”. but when she was leaving the room, he yelled “i love you too!” just as she was closing the door.

later that day, Zander mr. contrary was in the kitchen while his mommy and daddy were washing and chopping veggies for a salad for dinner. his mommy asked “do you want to stand on a chair and watch?”, but he said “no”. as his mommy and daddy went about their dinner-making business Zander mr. contrary started crying. his daddy ask “what’s wrong?”, and Zander mr. contrary whimpered “i want to stand on a chair and watch!”. so his mommy and daddy stiffled a laugh ran right over to get a chair for Zander mr. contrary to stand on.

at the dinner table, his daddy asked him “do you want some chicken?”, and Zander mr. contrary said “i don’t like chicken!”, so his daddy put the fork loaded with chicken back down on the plate. then Zander mr. contrary cried said “but i want some chicken!!!”. his daddy sighed in exasperation picked up the fork, said “okay…here comes some chicken!”, and fed him some chicken.

and this continued until Zander mr. contrary slowly drove his mommy and daddy insane.

the end.

okay, so it’s not totally appropriate for children…and i need to work on the ending a bit. but it’s only a first draft…i’m sure it will be a wonderfully endearing story by the time i’m done…if i haven’t lost all my marbles by then.

the magic of corn
such a strange phenomenon
such a small veggie

no matter how much
we chew chew chew when we eat
it reappears whole

sorry if that’s tmi, but seriously…whaddup with that???

the other day we had corn with our dinner. the next morning i was changing Logan’s diaper on the floor in the living room. as is more often than not, his diaper was loaded with danger full of poop. and there it was…the tell-tale sign of the previous night’s dinner…completely reassembled as if never ingested.

that’s when Zander walked up and asked if Logan had pooped. (yes…he wants to see his brother’s poop all the time, as well has his own…that’s a weird post for another day!) he stood there staring at it as if Logan had been hiding a green, three-headed alien in his diaper.

then he raised his head, his big, blue eyes wide with wonder, and asked “mommy…why does Logan have corn in his diaper?”.

what do you say? how do you explain to a three year old that, for some unknown reason, corn has the magical ability to make it past your chompers and through your entire digestive system with barely a scratch, and then mystically reassemble itself upon its exit? how?

i told him “when we eat food, it goes down to our tummy, and then comes out as poop. so there’s corn in Logan’s diaper because we ate it for dinner last night, and he pooped it out.”. he looked at me like i had finally lost it. kid…i lost it a long time ago…

so i thought about it…how do i explain this to him in terms that he will understand. EUREKA! Zander is addicted to a Canadian show called Mighty Machines. it’s a cute show with footage of trucks, boats, what-have-you that have annoying-as-hell cute little voices explaining what they do. his current favourite is the one about recycling with the crusher, the compactor, etc.

i put on my best straight face and said “well, when you eat food, it goes down your throat like a conveyor belt to your tummy. your tummy is like a compactor and smooshes all the food up, and then it comes out as poop.” (note that i decided to skip the whole intestinal tract/bowl thing…i mean, he’s three!)

his face brightened as he said “oh..ya!”.

so now if you ask him where poop comes from, he will happily tell you a colourful story full of machinery and gadgets.

unfortunately, he never got his answer as to why whole corn was in Logan’s diaper. as soon as i learn the secret behind the magic of corn, i’ll let him know.

i swear, Logan is a wobbly-walking accident waiting to happen. sometimes hubby and i wonder how he survives the day. i know toddlers tend to have no fear…but he not only has not one teensy-tiny bit of fear, he laughs at fear…and common sense. he goes head first into everything…even if it’s a pile of pointy wooden blocks. doesn’t matter.

he takes the same no-fear, no-forethought attitude to every aspect of his day. whether it’s meal time, bath time or time for a diaper change. it’s the latter that we are currently battling.

lately, Logan has taken a liking to shoving both his hands down the back of his diaper. he’ll walk around the house like that. he’ll stand with his pudgy little hands crammed down his diaper while watching TV (not that my kids watch much TV at all…i swear!). he’ll sit on the floor and play with one hand while having the other hand stuck between his cheeks. and then he’ll rub his eyes. lovely.

the other day i was sitting on the couch talking to my mom on the phone while the boys were happily playing. Logan came up to me and started rubbing his hand on my pant leg. i look down to see his hand covered in poop. which meant that my pants were covered in poop. and his shirt. and his pants. and his back. and both hands. it was even in his belly button. (still trying to figure that one out since there wasn’t any poop anywhere else on his belly.) he had put his hands down the back of his diaper at a most unfortunate time, and made a party of it. again, oh-so-lovely.

then there’s the actual act of changing his diaper. if he’s pooped, you can guarantee that he will try to get his hands on it. and then, inevitably, he will stick his fingers in his eyes.

it’s like a compulsion. his hands must be dirty, covered in filth-muck before he can rub his eyes. it’s the same at dinner…he’ll wait till his hands are covered in bits of corn or pasta sauce before rubbing his eyes. but as much of a pain in the ass it is to decrust his eyes after each meal, what we’re really worried about is the dreaded Conjunctivitis.

Zander had Pink Eye when he was a baby, but we didn’t have to worry about another child. but now….it’s so contagious, and with both boys running around touching each other’s faces, Zander wiping tears from Logan’s face when he’s crying, etc., it would just be a matter of time before they both had it. i can see it now…my boys looking up at me with those gorgeous, big blue eyes….surrounded by whites that have turned an angry pink. joy.

i guess we just have to face facts. Logan is a ticking time bomb…for Pink Eye, among many, many other things. welcome to the monkey house.

i’ve tried a couple of different drugs for my ppd since being diagnosed a year ago. i’m still trying to find one that works well. they all seem to work on some of my…er…issues, but not all.

Luvox was great for my depression, but did nothing for my anxiety attacks. Celexa worked wonders on my anxiety, but did nothing for my depression and made my fatigue worse (i didn’t even think that was possible!).

i’m currently on Effexor. i was told that this drug can take longer to work than others, so we gave it a while. i’ve been on it for 7 months now, and i’m just not thinking it’s the drug for me. first of all, it took a couple of months to do anything. Secondly, it’s worked on my depression as well as my anxiety, but has fallen short for me. it’s take a bit of the edge off….but that’s it. even after my dose was increased, it doesn’t seem to do as much as the others.

and lastly…and this is the big one….it was simply too easy for me to fall back into my depression-induced malaise after the move to the new house. my anxiety has creeped back. not as bad as before the meds, but bad enough to be a big, red, flashing warning light that something is amiss. my fatigue is almost unbearable. i can hardly wake up and i nap whenever i get the chance (even in the car for the 5 minute trip to the grocery store). as for my passions, which are blogging and cardmaking….well…they’ve gone out the window, as is clearly evident by my few-and-far-between posts over the past couple of months.  i’ve also lost touched with so many friends…i’ve become a hermit again.

so there you have it. i rest my case. it’s time for a new drug.

but here’s the rub. events in the last couple of days have made me scared to get off the Effexor. allow me to explain…

the other night i didn’t sleep much. my asthma was so bad that i kept waking up in spectacular fits of choking. so i was up reading most of the night while trying to quell my attacks. (atleast if i was awake, i could catch the attacks before they grew to catastrophic proportions.) so when morning came, i had slept a grand total of 2.5 hours. what with the brain fog and all, i failed to remember that my Effexor prescription had run out the day before, and that i had called in my refill but hadn’t picked it up yet. this is where the story takes a horrific turn.

sometime in the afternoon i started to feel weird. my doctor had warned me of the possibility of a “zinging” sensation when going off of Effexor, so i knew what it was, and that it was because i hadn’t taken my dose that day. i told Carlos, who quickly got to feeding the kids their dinner so he could go out and get my refill, since by then i knew i couldn’t drive. the “zinging” sensations where enough to completely disorient me.

during the time it took to feed the boys, i got worse. my skin was crawling, i was dizzy, i was weak, my speech sounded “jittery”, i was shivering, and the “zinging” had now taken on a feeling more akin to electrocution. every time i made the slightest movement, i got zapped. every time something touched me (one of the boys, my sweater, or when i touched my glass of water to pick it up), i got zapped. every time i turned my head, not matter how little, i got zapped. it was awful.

one of the worst things were the brain flashes. every couple of minutes it was like there were suddenly thousands of camera flashes in my head. the key phrase here is “in my head“. this wasn’t something i saw with my eyes. it was the same whether i had my eyes open or closed. and if that wasn’t disturbing enough, the sound that accompanied these flashes was straight out of a horror movie. you know that metallic “schwing” sound that swords make in movies? well, it was like that crossed with an electric zapping sound.

i won’t go into the details of how our pharmacy closed earlier than we expected, and how we had to find another pharmacy that would fill my prescription with just my empty pill bottle rather than an actual doctor-written prescription. to make a long story short, it took about 3.5 hours from the time i took my missed dose to when i started to feel better. it wasn’t till the next morning that i was completely myself again.

i Googled this whole nightmare to find out that Effexor is known for its intense and torturous withdrawal symptoms. some people, even after slowly lowering their dose until they are Effexor free, have suffered dizziness and other nasty side effects for weeks after stopping the drug.

so, though i’m finally ready to try a different medication, i’m facing a long, nightmarish departure from the Effexor. i guess the silver lining here is that i’ve been given a glimpse into what it will be like so i can be prepared. i have a feeling that the start of my Effexor-weening will be timed with one of my mom’s week-long visits!

the old saying “the cure is worse than the disease” has never rung so true.

*** just fyi…i started writing this post on April 6th. Logan is all better now…but that fact that i’m just finishing this and posting it now just shows you how frick-frackin’ tired i am!

we brought more home from my parents’ place than chocolate bunnies after spending the Easter weekend there. all of us came home with a crappy cold. unfortunately, Logan’s has gone ahead and progressed into Croup.

i’m not sure how he got Croup. all i know is that my nephew was just getting over a cold, my niece was just starting a cold, and my cousin’s 3 daughters all had some kind of cold when we saw them for Easter.

Logan kept grabbing my nephew Oliver’s pacifier and shoving it in his mouth, which can’t have been good. my niece Georgina was snotting all over him. and my cousin’s daughters, the oldest being 6 years old, have never been told not sneeze or cough all over other people, other people’s food, or to simply cover their mouths.

so Zander, Carlos and i are getting over our stuffy noses….and Logan has Croup.

i’ve never dealt with Croup before, but i recognized the telltale barking-seal signs when Logan coughed. here in Ontario, we have a service called TeleHealth. great service. it’s a call center manned by nurses. you speak to a nurse, tell them what’s going on with you or your loved one, and they can give you recommendations to treat the illness/injury at home, advise you to see your doctor as soon as possible, or rush your ass to the nearest emergency room. let me tell you, TeleHealth has saved me many a gajillion-hour wait at a clinic or ER!

so i call TeleHealth to confirm my suspicions, and sure enough….it’s the dreaded Croup. luckily it’s not bad enough to warrant a hospital visit, but enough to be advised to monitor him while he’s sleeping at night, lots of humidification, steam baths, and honey to help the cough.

the honey didn’t go so well. we gave him a tiny bit, he gagged, and he threw up all over himself, Carlos (who was holding him at the time) and the kitchen floor. he was not a happy camper.

so i dutifully slept in his room. on my super comfortable Poäng chair. with my legs up on a heaping-full laundry basket. oh, what a glorious sleep i had.

but seriously, Logan woke up in a coughing fit every 20 minutes for the first couple of hours. which was fine, because i hadn’t fallen asleep yet…i was too busy listening to his breathing. then came the coughing fit that changed it all. it was so bad that he gagged and choked and almost threw up. which sent him into hysterics. and that was the end of him sleeping in the crib.

for the rest of the night, i sat in the chair holding him up right, with his chest against mine. he slept. i didn’t. when morning finally came, Carlos came and got Logan, and i went to bed for a few hours to actually sleep.

today has been much of the same. luckily he’s in good spirits unless he’s coughing up a lung. unfortunately, this leads to him not understanding that he’s sick and should take it easy. so he runs around like a madman, which makes him breath really hard, which makes his cough worse.

tonight when the boys were in the bath, we decided to try the honey again. we figured that it might work better since Logan was all calm and humidified by the steam. wrong. once again, he coughed and threw up…in the bath. he thought it was funny, and decided to splash his hands in the pukey water, while Zander backed up as fast as i’ve ever seen him do anything, yelling “can you get me out!!!”.

so it will be another night sitting in the chair staring into the darkness listening to a wheezy, raspy little boy sleeping all the while getting another stiff neck sleeping in the chair. i’m so looking forward to it.

update: it took another 4 days for Logan to be over his nasty cough, and for me to get a somewhat decent night’s sleep. he’s fine now…up to his usual turdiness. we’re lucky that it was a fairly short case of croup…it could’ve been much worse.

i’m hoping to finally get back to blogging on a regular basis. it’s been tough to get back into it though….but that’s a whole other post!

hey, have you seen cate?
she hasn’t blogged in ages
where the hell’d she go?

she used to be here
it’s like she done dropped off the
face of the planet!

i’m here. and i’m sorry i left the blogosphere without a word to anyone. but i’ve been in my own personal packing/unpacking/moving hell. seriously…whose idea was it to move anyway? oh ya…it was mine.

anyhoo….

i’m in my new house. it’s small, but beautiful. the layout makes daily life with the boys much easier. still settling in, but we’re enjoying it.

moving was tougher than i thought it would be. lots of thoughts and emotions cropped up that i kinda half-expected didn’t expect, and which took their toll on me…leading to my disappearance. and the logistics of the move itself were mind-boggling. but that’s another super-long post.

i’d like to keep my re-entry light-hearted, so i’ll refrain from sharing the depressing details for a few days. for now, i’m just glad to be back.

i missed you all….did you miss me? (lookin’ for some love here…hint hint! )

packing up the house
an endless sea of cardboard
will it ever end?

been packing for weeks
never be able to tell
haven’t made a dent

surpised at what’s found
where did all this crap come from?
do we need it all?

less than a month now
will packing be done in time?
really not so sure

wow…this packing thing is crazy! we’ll pack 10 huge boxes of crap treasured items…and it still doesn’t look any different. like we haven’t packed anything!

my rec room in the basement is filling up with boxes of everything and bags of clothes, yet the top two floors look like we haven’t touched them. i feel like it will never be done.

we are currently scheduled to move on February 23rd. that’s 29 days from now. 4 weeks from tomorrow. we have 4 weekends until the move weekend.

oh…we’re so screwed.

as if he had hacked into my email and read the message where i told JJ that i would post this morning’s breakfast conversation of it was blog-worthy, Zander was in rare form this morning!

this is the conversation i had with Zander while sitting at the dining room table eating breakfast:

Zander: what dat?

me: what’s what?

Zander: in da kitchen! [pointing wildly towards the doorway to the next room]

me: i don’t know…what is it?

Zander: a cake!

me: no, i don’t think that’s a cake!

Zander: it’s a shirt!

me: [seeing the cardigan that i had taken off and placed on the kitchen table] that’s mommy’s sweater.

Zander: it’s a shirt…and pants…and socks! for daddy!

me: it is?

Zander: what dat noise?

me: what noise?

Zander: i hear dat noise again!

me: what noise is that?

Zander: uh-oh! someone in trouble!

me: someone’s in trouble?

Zander: daddy…daddy in trouble!

me: no…daddy’s fine

Zander: daddy in trouble! where daddy?

me: daddy’s at work.

Zander: oh no! i better help him!

me: why do you need to help daddy?

Zander: i like toast!

me: ya…toast is good isn’t it? and it’s good for you. it helps you grow up big and strong.

Zander: [nodding in agreement] mmm…tasty!

me: yup…toast sure is tasty!

Zander: dis cheese is wet!

me: [examining the cheese] no, the cheese isn’t wet.

Zander: i don’t like dis cheese.

me: [trying to figure out how to explain that marble cheese is the same as cheddar] yes you do. this is just like orange cheese, but they coloured some of it white to make it look funny. see?

Zander: no. i want orange cheese.

me: we don’t have any orange cheese…only marble cheese. it tastes the same as orange cheese. why don’t you try it?

Zander: where are my engines? [referring to the plethora of Thomas steam engines he got for Christmas]

me: they’re in the box over there. on the bottom of the bookcase.

Zander: look at ALL my engines!

me: ya…you have a lot of engines, don’t you?

Zander: better get a track!

me: you want to build a track for your engines? i’ll help you build a big track after breakfast. but you have to finish eating first.

Zander: uh-oh…what dat noise?

me: that’s an airplane flying over the house.

Zander: ya! airplane! where she going? [everyone and everything is "she" to Zander]

me: i don’t know. where do you think the airplane is going?

Zander: she going to da airport!

me: yup! the airplane is going to the airport.

Zander: dis cheese is wet!

….

phew….the conversation didn’t end there, but my brain is too tired to keep going.