Yesterday, as we were driving home after picking up Noah, she told us something that had happened at school that day. And then I flipped out a little bit. She told us of an incident at school that classified as sexual harassment. I was livid, asking her questions, getting all the details. Noah had to step in and tell her that I was not mad at her. No! I wasn’t mad at her! I told her that, and then explained that what was said to her was not okay and that I was really glad that she told us.

Once I got all the details from her, I told Kaylie that I’d go with her in the morning to talk to her teacher. I did, and her teacher reacted exactly as I’d hoped she would — she took it seriously. Mrs. B told Kaylie and me her plan of action and I left, satisfied that the incident would be dealt with.

I got a call from the principal just before I left to pick Kaylie up after school. He told me how it was dealt with and I was very impressed. When Kaylie got in the van, she was happy and bouncy. I liked her school before this happened, but I like it even more now.

I told Kaylie that if anything like that ever happens again (I like to think it won’t, but I’m not that naive), she needs to tell me. She needs to tell someone. I also told her that it’s important to remember things exactly as they happened. That it’s important to tell the truth, and not to improvise or make up details she can’t remember.

I want my girls to know that it is not okay for someone to touch them when they do not want to be touched. It is not okay for someone to threaten to touch them. It is not okay for someone to talk about touching them, even if that person is supposedly joking. It’s not okay.

I want my girls to know that their bodies are their own. Nobody else has the right to touch them without their approval. Nobody else has the right to threaten them. I want them to know that they have rights and they have people who will make sure that those rights are honored. That they have people who will be on their side no matter what.

Sometimes I want to wrap my kids in bubble wrap and put them in a padded room, to keep them safe. I know this is not realistic. I know they will get hurt and I know that bad things will probably happen to them. I also know that I will go all Angry Mom on anyone that hurts or tries to hurt one of my babies.

Anyway, yesterday was one of the worse days, and then I got a phone call from Kaylie that went something like this:

“Mama, someone brought a real gun to school and it exploded and I’m scared. Can you come get me?”

“WHAT? A GUN?”

“Yea, I want to come home.”

“I’m coming to get you right now.”

“Okay … um … I just have to make sure it’s okay with my teacher that I go home.”

“No, you tell your teacher you’re leaving because I’m your mom and I’m the boss of you and you are coming home.”

“Okay.”

Um, yea, so that was fun. Apparently an 11-year-old Grade 5 boy (THE SAME GRADE AS KAYLIE)(just a different class) brought a gun to school and it went off in his backpack in his locker cubby hook thing. (How is that even possible? Is that just the story they’re going with? That it “went off”?) Apparently he didn’t know that it was loaded. The front page of this morning’s paper had a quote from a police officer which said, “Initially our officers thought he may have taken it as something to show friends.” So that means that he didn’t just take it to show his friends, so WHY did he bring it to school? Nobody was hurt and school went on, although kids were given the option of going home if they wanted to. When I got there, there were cops and a news station outside.

I’m glad she has no school tomorrow (previously scheduled day off) because I’m pretty sure I’d keep her home anyway. I’m not letting myself go into the what-ifs of a kid BRINGING A LOADED GUN TO SCHOOL because they are just horrible, like what if he brought it to the playground and pretended to shoot one of his friends in a “game” and actually shot him or her? What if the gun didn’t hit a metal water bottle in the kid’s backpack, but was aimed out at the kids? WHAT IF? I just can’t think about it. Homeschooling starts on Monday. (I’m kidding.)(Kind of.)

Anyway, on to things that don’t involve guns in my kid’s school.

At Canadian Family: 3 Great Baby Gates for Little Ones on the Move

Daily Flickr Photos:
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On Instagram:
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You know how I said that I wanted to take all this week’s photos with my real camera, not my iPhone camera? Well, my computer had other plans. You see, I cannot get my camera to upload photos onto our current computer, so I’ve been uploading them onto our old will-not-connect-to-the-internet computer, editing them (since that’s also where my Photoshop is), and transferring them by thumb drive to our current computer. It’s a hassle, but it’s been working. Until today. Today, I got an error message that said something like, “NTLDR is missing”. I tried to google a troubleshoot, but it was all Greek to me. So, alas, I had to use my iPhone camera. *sigh*

The original photo was of me attempting to put Preston to sleep in his crib with his new light-up music box thinger. He didn’t go to sleep. I really don’t mind rocking him to sleep, I quite like it, but my 22-lb little man is hard on my back (and nursing him to sleep was not working). So, Noah put him to sleep. After a bit of fussing and crying. (This was the third time today Noah had put Preston to sleep.) (Also, the third time in Preston’s life Noah had put Preston to sleep.) (The boy likes his mama.)

This photo was taken above his crib and was supposed to have him in it, but I didn’t want too much light in his room. And, the only way I could get enough light from the iPhone was to put part of my hand in front of the lens. Stupid phone.

Oh, AND, when I tried to upload this photo to Flickr using the Flickr app, the app decided to be all fubar’d as well. So, I downloaded a different Flickr app and HERE IS THE PHOTO. Why is Day Two being such a pain in the butt?

Oh, and the theme. Inside. I am … inside. And also, not very bright, since I didn’t think to check the theme until after I’d uploaded the photo, written the caption, and remembered that Day Two usually has a theme. (Forgive me once, Sarah?)

I nearly go postal on other drivers while picking Kaylie up from school.
You would too. Trust me.
Kaylie and I get home, Noah goes to bed, and I try to keep the girls quiet.
I hear a crash in Liliana’s room.
I check on said crash and find that Kaylie has torn down Liliana’s blinds.
Apparently the blinds said, “I am a rope swing.”
I melt a plastic IKEA fork while making bacon.
I watch as a City worker puts a ticket on my car.
My car that is parked IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE.
On the wrong side of the street.
She uses a lot of force to snap down my windshield wiper.
I am not fast enough to run outside and stop her.
I am not fast enough to catch an arthritic turtle.
I come back from retrieving said ticket to find that I burned the bacon.
The girls and I eat an entire package of bacon.

Other than that, it was a great day!

I woke up Saturday morning and tried to stave off the impending bathroom visit because I just didn’t want to leave the warm covers. I didn’t last long and finally gave in and made a trip down the hall. I crawled back into bed and looked at my phone, hoping that it would say 4am, meaning I still had three hours before I had two goobers hop into bed with me. The time said 7:09. Darn. I laid there in the dark silence waiting for Three to start moving, like he does every morning. I didn’t feel anything. Weird.

I tried to get comfortable again to no avail. So, I just got up. The couch was calling my name and maybe a change in position would make Three wake up. After half an hour and still no movement, I went to the pantry and got a pack of the girls’ fruit snacks because I figured the sugar would do it. It didn’t.

I wasn’t too worried, he was probably just turned so I couldn’t feel the movements, or maybe he’d had a party while I was sleeping. Who knows. I’d planned to spend most of the morning/early afternoon finishing up a project for a friend and proceeded to do so after my Mini Wheats. The day kind of flew by, and when I’d finished all I had to do it was nearly 6pm and I realized I still had hardly felt Three move. I’d had a couple small “I’m still alive!” movements, but this kid is VERY active EVERY day and I was starting to get a little worried. I held off for a while longer, but after eating, laying down, and still not feeling much of anything, I decided to go get checked out. If it was something for just me, I would have just dealt with it and avoided a doctor; but since someone else’s life is depending on me, I thought it was safer to feel like an idiot and know that everything’s alright.

Noah stayed with the girls and I took off by myself, right after google mapping where the hospital actually is. I’d never been there before. I knew kind of where it was, but didn’t really know how to get there. I knew what exit I had to take and took it and … I was going in the wrong direction. I took the east-bound exit. I needed the west-bound exit. Whoops. I was getting kind of scared because I found myself on a very dark highway with very dirty headlights and I could hardly see where I was going. Thankfully, a couple kilometres down the highway I finally found a place to turn around. Things weren’t much better when I finally found the hospital and then had to find where to park. I may have taken a couple wrong turns. Whoops. Again.

I finally found parking, found an entrance, found a sign that said ADMITTING, and walked toward it. It was for the cancer clinic. Not exactly what I was looking for. I saw another sign marked INFORMATION and was finally pointed in the right direction by the lady behind the desk. Score. I found Emergency, sat down to talk to one of the admitting ladies, and heard the paramedic who was standing next to me start talking about the creepy crawlies on the guy he’d brought in. I wasn’t eavesdropping, I would have had to wear super-powered ear protection to not be able to hear him. I got my wrist band on and followed the directions I’d been given to L&D while avoiding the aforementioned stretcher.

I had the sweetest nurse ever. She had such a look of relief on her face when she put the monitor thing on and heard a heartbeat. She left me with the monitor for a while and when she returned, she was happy with what she saw on the printout thinger. She left it on a while longer, I saw a doctor, and soon I was heading out with an all-is-well stamp. Hospital visits while pregnant are great – I got through Emerg quicker than lightening and I had L&D all to myself. I was only there for a total of an hour and a half, and didn’t spend any time waiting around. The only problem was finding my way back to the parking lot.

I found the parking lot, found my car, headed home, and MISSED MY EXIT. Seriously. You know how most exits exit from the right-hand lane? Well, this one didn’t. Stupid exit. I took the next one though, kind of knew where I was, and just took a huge detour hoping I would end up where I wanted to go. As you can tell from reading this post, I eventually made it home. Next time I have to go to the hospital, I’d better be in labor and Noah had better be driving.

After getting myself a snack of yogurt and blueberries, I sat on the couch and Three decided to have a crazy little party for the next two hours, because OF COURSE HE DID.

Just to warn you, I’m going to vent for a bit, okay? Okay.

I think four jobs is too many. You may say I’m stating the obvious, but each one came when we really needed it and we are in no place for either of us to say no to work, since Noah isn’t working at all. Yet. (If you’re the praying type, we’d definitely appreciate prayer in this area!) All four of my jobs work into pretty much full-time hours and I actually like the variety, but when one asks me to do something extra, my head nearly explodes. I have the blessing of working for amazing people in each job, and they’ve been very flexible with appointments and such, so there’s no complaints there. It couldn’t get better. But, being pulled in four different directions is rough and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t counting down the weeks until my mat leave starts. I said yes to working a couple extra afternoons in February that will give me a couple 44+ hour weeks, but again, I saw the extra hours as a blessing, and we definitely need them.

I’m doing my best to make it through the pregnancy with a positive and thankful attitude. I know what a blessing it is to be able to have children, and I strongly believe each one is a precious gift, but I feel like the pregnancy part might just kill me. While the morning sickness was going on, I so looked forward to the second trimester when I would be able to function without feeling like I was going to lose my cookies at a moment’s notice. There was the light of the second trimester “honeymoon period” when I’d have energy and I wouldn’t be too big yet to be uncomfortable that got me through the days and nights of nausea. When that time finally came, it lasted less than a week and then it was gone. The pressure and pain in the lower half of my body then took over and has gotten progressively worse each week. I’m frustrated.

I’m frustrated that sitting in an office chair hurts. You’d think that an office job would be the easiest one to keep through a whole pregnancy, right? I find myself getting less and less done each week as I have to get up and walk around or make a thousand trips to the washroom in hopes that the next time I sit down I’ll be able to complete an entire task without an appendage going numb or losing my sight to all the stars floating around in my vision. I’m frustrated that I can’t stand up for more then a few minutes without getting light-headed and dizzy, which is really awkward when someone is trying to talk to me and all I can think about is I hope I don’t pass out.

I’m losing sleep to nightmares. The baby’s movements don’t bother me when I’m laying down, I can easily sleep through them. My legs go numb causing me to have to turn over often, but it’s not a huge deal. The nightmares cause me to wake up with my heart beating wildly, in a near panic-attack state. I hate them. They are terrifyingly vivid and based on real events and therefore seem real but I would take twice the pain if I could just be rid of the them. It’s usually the same nightmare over and over, night after night for what feels like forever. On the nights that I have them (which is most nights), I either cannot get back to sleep afterward or it takes me a very, very long time. I’m usually having flashbacks to them for the first part of the day as well, and, the odd time, the entire day.

There have been a lot of stressful things/events during the last seven months that I can’t blog about (don’t you hate it when people do that?) (me too) (sorry about that) that have attributed to my having a very small appetite and therefore not gaining a whole lot of weight. The depression hasn’t helped either. My appetite has increased in the last week or so, but most times eating is a chore and even if I feel physically hungry, it takes me a while to convince myself to eat something. On the one hand I’m thankful for this, as it leaves me with less (if any) weight to lose afterward, but on the other hand it worries me a bit in wondering if the baby’s getting all he needs. Every measurement I’ve had has been right on (or bigger) and my goodness I’m HUGE, so I’m pretty sure he’s fine, but still.

The extra stresses as of late (partly related to wanting to be in control when I’m not) have increased my irritability and shortened my fuse. Both today and yesterday I kind of lost it on the girls more than they deserved. I hate it when I do that. I end up feeling horrid and although they were being disobedient and needed to be corrected, they didn’t deserve to get yelled at. I hate yelling. I hate hearing it. There was a lot of yelling in my house growing up and I always told myself that I wouldn’t do that with my kids. (Us kids yelled at each other too, it wasn’t just the parents.)

I know I’m nearing the end of this marathon, and the end is in sight, I just have to make it there.

This morning was going to be an off morning anyway, as I had a prenatal appointment, Noah had to go talk to his boss*, and I had to find some time to fit three hours of work in. I was going to go into work at 8:45 and take Liliana with me so that Noah could go talk to his boss, then he was going to come with me to my prenatal appointment at 10:00, drop me back off at work, pick me up at 2:30ish so I could drive him to his physio appointment at 3:00 and pick Kaylie up from school at 3:15. Sounds simple, right?

(*Noah’s been off work for six weeks with a back injury, this being his last day, barring a bad physio assessment this afternoon, and he had to tie up some loose ends.)

Well, I usually shower at night, but last night I wasn’t feeling well so I just went to bed instead. I was going to just skip it this morning and have one tonight, but then I figured if I was going to have a medical professional in close contact, I should probably have one this morning. It was a rushed morning anyway, as Noah and Liliana usually stay home but today they were coming with and I had to make some muffins because Kaylie didn’t have enough other things to take in her lunch. So, it was 8:15, we were supposed to leave in 5-10 minutes, and I was still unshowered and in my sweats (but there were muffins!)

I told Noah to just go, and to come back and pick Liliana and me up just before 10:00, and we’d go to the appointment from there. I thought I heard a thumping when I was in the shower, but I figured it was just Liliana fooling around in her bedroom, which is right beside the bathroom.

I glanced at the clock at about 9:40 and figured Noah would be back soon, so I was getting Liliana ready to head out the door. As I was getting a glass of water, I noticed his cell phone on the kitchen counter, charging.

Then there was a knock. I figured Noah had left the car running with his keys and therefore couldn’t get in (our door is ALWAYS locked), but when I opened the door, his mom was there. I figured that he’d called her to come get me because he got caught at work, but before I could say two words to Sue, the phone rang. It was Noah. “You’re probably pretty pissed at me, huh?” I had NO idea what he was talking about. My first thought was that it was because he wasn’t coming to the prenatal appointment with me because he got caught up at work (he hasn’t been to one with this baby yet) but I wouldn’t get mad about something like that, so I was confused. I told him that his mom had JUST stepped in the door and I had NO idea what was going on. He said something about insurance being expired (which is impossible, since it’s on continuous and the payment JUST came out for this month) and he was pulled over and our car was being towed to the house.

SO, I went back and talked to Sue, got things figured out as much as possible, and waited for the tow truck. Apparently she wasn’t having a great morning either, so it must be a family thing. Except for my father-in-law who is in Florida today probably sucking back cold beverages under the hot sun. (He’s there on a layover on his way to a speaking engagement in Haiti.) I called Noah at work so I could get the full story on WHAT THE HECK WAS GOING ON, and apparently it was this:

He was turning on to the road that led to his company’s office and a cop was behind him. The cop continued to follow him after the turn, and a couple blocks later turned on the lights. Noah pulled over, confused, as he hadn’t done anything illegal. He was told that his license had expired (whoops!), the cop had the car towed, and Noah was given a ride to work in the back of the cop car. (If you know him, you’ll be laughing as hard as I did at the idea of him sitting in the back of a cop car.) He said it wasn’t comfortable. I DON’T THINK IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE. Apparently the cop was gracious enough to get the car towed to the house instead of the impound lot.

So, I called my nurse practitioner to reschedule my appointment and I called work to tell them that I didn’t know when I’d be in. When I mentioned that Noah had his first ride in the back of a cop car, the Administrative Assistant burst out laughing (she’s been my father-in-law’s AA for over three years, so she obviously knows Noah).

He finally got home at around noon. The car STILL hadn’t shown up. He called the police station and was redirected to three different impound lots before he finally found our car. Apparently that thumping I heard when I was in the shower was the tow truck driver trying to drop off the car. The thing is, I had NO idea that he was coming and I didn’t hear Noah call because of the shower as well. Whereas I first thought that Noah had been driving around since last July with an expired license (I thought it expired in your birthday month – mine does), the ticket says that it expired in 2011. So, within the last seven days. SO LAME.

Sue had picked Noah up from work, gotten his license renewed, and gave him her car. After Liliana’s quiet time, we headed out to get the car, which now cost $20 more because it had been brought to the lot instead of just being dropped off at our house. So, now the car is finally at home, Noah has a valid license, and we have a super-fun ticket sitting on the counter BECAUSE WE NEEDED ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE.

I hate the part where you go over things and think of all the what-ifs.

IF I’d had my shower last night, or if I’d gotten up earlier to make the muffins, I’d have gone with him and I could have driven the car to save the tow truck bill.

IF he’d come to get his cell phone when he remembered he forgot it as he was pulling out of the garage, he could have called to have me come get the car.

IF I’d brought my cell phone into the bathroom with me (I often do during the day because it’s the emergency contact number for K’s school), I would have known to expect the tow truck.

IF I’d had my shower 10 minutes earlier, I would have heard the tow truck driver at the door.

IF none of this had happened and I’d been able to go to my prenatal appointment, I’d be able to find out why I want to die every time I take a step with my left leg and why I nearly pass out if I stand still for more than 2.3 seconds. I’d also have been able to go to work today.

IF that cop hadn’t been so bored, maybe he wouldn’t have gone around searching for people with expired licenses.

Even if all those things happened though, I’m not sure when Noah would have realized that his license had expired. So, maybe it would have happened eventually, we’ll never know. But today, it kind of sucked.

So, after we finally got the car stuff taken care of, Noah went to return his mom’s car to her and go to his physio appointment. He called me from his mom’s office when he was done and said that his phone was broken. As in, broken broken.

ARE YOU DONE WITH US YET, UNIVERSE?

We depend on our phones a lot, and text frequently throughout the day about kid logistics, dinner, who needs the car when, etc. (No, we’re not organized enough to do all that in the morning.) Our cell contract is ending soon, so I’ve been looking into new phones and phone contracts lately anyway because Noah’s phone is super old and has been borking out lately. One cool thing about our particular provider is that we rack up “dollars” with every bill that we can put toward a new phone. I knew this already, but I wasn’t really in a hurry to get a new phone as we still have a couple months our current contract ends.

The girls and I picked Noah up from physio and headed to the mall to see what our options were. After talking with the booth dude, we discovered that we had enough “dollars” to get a FREE iPhone 4 with our contract renewal. SCORE. You can’t get better than free, and after all the expenses that we accrued today, free was the only option we had.

So, now Liliana has a new phone (Noah’s old dead one), Noah has the iPhone he’s been wanting, and I have the higher-than-super-low-quality video that I’ve been wanting. And the best part is that it didn’t cost us a thing (besides patience, as we were at the booth for about half an hour trying to keep track of an independent 3-year-old).

I’ve already started downloading a bunch of free apps. (Have I mentioned how much I like FREE?) Yea, it’s Noah’s phone, but since we’re married it’s half mine, right? *insert evil cackle*

Now all is well in the world. We have our car back, we have a new toy to play with, and it’s the weekend.

ps. Thanks for ALL your help today, Sue! We couldn’t have done it without you.