I’m coming up for air from my Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon. I have this thing where if I start a TV series, I can’t stop until I finish it. I hadn’t seen a single episode of Buffy until a couple weeks ago, and now I’m hooked. I think I’m on Episode #111. Season 6, I think. I’ve lost track, what with just clicking “next episode” all the time. Thank you, Netflix.

In other, more interesting non-Buffy news, it’s warm here. Spring warm. Going-outside-without-a-sweater warm. Blue sky warm. I-can-see-my-whole-lawn warm. It’s wonderful, is what I’m saying. Kaylie had a friend over on Saturday and all six of us went outside to play soccer/ride bikes/bask in the general loveliness that is grass.

Liliana would spend all her time outside if we let her. She loves and needs to run around. And around and around and around.

This girl has her first wiggly tooth and she is SO excited. She tells me that Kaylie is an adult now because Kaylie just lost her last baby tooth.

See that little thing on his forehead? I did that. With my nail. I always feel so wonderful when I wound one of my children.

Saturday was also my due date with Preston, one year ago. It seems like forever ago, but it also doesn’t feel like an entire year has passed. And also I can’t imagine life without Preston in it. It’s a weird group of feelings.

It’s incredible the difference spring has made with my depression. It’s like a veil has been lifted. I’m hoping this euphoria lasts. It’s quite wonderful to not be plagued by a big black cloud all the time. Running is helping, too. Especially when I find $10 on the ground, like I did on my Saturday morning run.

Spring. SPRING! We actually had an incredible winter, weather-wise, but it was no spring.

I hope it’s been good to you, too.

FaceTime’ing with Dad last weekend

My boy is feeling better today. Hooray! He went a couple days last week with a high fever, eating nothing, just nursing. He whimpered and he was extremely snuggly and sensitive. If someone looked the wrong way at him, he cried. Today is better. He’s eating again and he only cried when his buddy Kesler came near him. My boy has a big personal bubble.

Both girls had Friday off from school. Liliana always has Fridays off, but Kaylie had it off for … something. It seems as though she has at least one day a week off. It sure didn’t feel like, when I was a kid, we had as many days off as she has. Usually on days I don’t have to leave the house, we have a pajama day and don’t do much. This past Friday, however, my friend Chris suggested we hang out and since her son Nathanael (Liliana’s four-year-old friend) was coming with her, I let Kaylie have a play date, too. (Is it still called a play date when kids are 10-going-on-11?)

I’m not really a fan of play dates. I mean, having kids over when their parents are also over is fine, but the kids of people I don’t know? School friends and such? Not a fan. I just … I don’t know what it is. I’d just rather avoid them. Because, as Liliana always tells me, I’m a bad parent. But, I’d rather Kaylie have a friend over than have her go to a place where I don’t know the parents (and I don’t like meeting parents)(I HAVE ISSUES, OKAY?).

Chris and I spent the day baking, and you’d think we’d have had a lot to show by the end of the day, but I ate six muffins and the brownies kind of disappeared and the cookies were just really tasty. It’s all gone already, is what I’m saying. It’s a good thing I made that coffee cake yesterday so I’d have something to eat for breakfast today.

Noah suggested that Chris and I have a girls’ night, so we did. Chris’s husband came for dinner and then took their son home, Noah went to hang out with his mom (and subject her to Centre Ice hockey), and the three of us (I let Kaylie stay up) watched Runaway Bride and ate popcorn and chocolate. Oh, and I fell asleep and stayed asleep through most of the movie. Whoops.

Saturday morning was the usual gymnastics/ballet/Tim Hortons (it kills me that there is no apostrophe in Tim Hortons)(related: I have issues) shenanigans and after lunch we headed to my favorite one-year-old boy’s birthday party. I didn’t pay too much attention to the address on the FB invite and just assumed it was at Kesler’s house. Except nobody was there. So I checked the invite, apologized to my family, and typed the address into google maps. I forgot to put in a teeny tiny letter and we ended up at the wrong house. Again. Whoops. So this time I double AND TRIPLE checked that I had the address right and we showed up at the party an hour late. But we were right on time for cake, so I’ll call it a WIN.

Mr. Kesler will have to share the title of favorite one-year-old boy in 16 days (!!!), so we had to celebrate. Kesler downed his birthday cupcake in record time. It was quite awesome to watch. Especially since I didn’t have to clean him up.

Oh, and Saturday was also the first day of the spring run of 7 Days.

I missed the winter run, so I was looking forward to this one. And here’s Sunday’s shot:

Sunday I went for my first run in three weeks. I let my head/neck/shoulder pain take over the last couple weeks, but through the magic of muscle relaxants, I could finally move again. Woot. It always takes me forever to get my butt out the door to go running. I’m a professional staller/procrastinator. And I’m quite lazy. But, when I get back, I’m always glad I went. And then I fall down dead in my couch groove from the overabundance of physical activity.

We have dinner at the in-laws with Taygan every Sunday evening, and since Sue had just gotten back from vacation a couple days before, we had her, Taygan, and Andrew at our place instead, which means that we had people for dinner twice in three days, which is very weird for us hermits. It gave me an excuse to cook, though, which was quite nice because I haven’t been doing much of that lately.

It’s weird how time just disappears. Every time I turn my back, it’s the weekend again (which is not a bad thing) and then it’s Monday and then the end of March and then HOLY CRAP MY BABY IS ALMOST ONE. I’m way behind on blog reading (sorry about that), there are a bazillion shows piled up on our DVR, and there is some shrimp in my fridge that should really be thrown out already. And both Noah and I went to bed at 8:30 last night. Well, he fell asleep on the couch until 2am and I went to bed intending to go to sleep but fell down a Facebook wormhole and then couldn’t sleep until almost midnight. Lame.

Am I caught up now? Oh, right, here’s my Canadian Family post from last Thursday. It’s about thermometers. Alrighty. I think that’s it now.

Happy Monday!

Today is good, though. Noah, Preston, and I are keeping everything down, Noah’s back at work and got some really good news, and the kids and I are enjoying a day at home, with nothing to do and nowhere to be. Noah is taking tomorrow and Friday off, and we’re gonna enjoy some family time for the last two days of the girls’ February Break. With the crappy week we’ve had (heh.), I’m looking forward to some good times.

When I uploaded the photos from Monday, I found some others on my camera that I’d forgotten about. I’m good like that.

I sold this stroller on the weekend, and this was Preston’s last ride in it, about a week earlier. I loved it, but since I’ll soon have two little boys around, I wanted a double. (I got this one.) I think I’ve mentioned before how much I love Chariots.

Noah and the goobers, on the morning of the Super Bowl. Maybe next year, New England Tom Bradies. Maybe next year.

We woke up to hoar frost a little bit ago and I love it so much. It is the thing about winter that makes me the happiest.

The other day I brought up from the basement the rest of the baby toys (I brought up only a few when Preston was a couple months old). Liliana was stoked about all the “new” toys, and I figured with her memory she’d remember playing with them only two years earlier. Apparently not, and she has spend the last little while thinking they are the coolest toys ever.

Liliana is totally impressing us with her reading skills lately. (Thank you, Super Why!) She’s been able to sound things out for quite a while, but she now started spelling things with the blocks. She sounded out “Preston” all on her own and only got one letter wrong. I’d call that a WIN.

We wanted to fit some sort of family-type activity to do on Monday, being that it was Family Day and all, but Preston was still sick in the morning. By early evening he seemed to be doing all right so we packed everyone up and went to the river to go for a walk and test out the new stroller.

Noah thought it would be really funny to get a close-up of me. But, ha! He missed!

The thing about Liliana is that she does not like to be last. Ever. She’ll yell at you to wait for her, and as soon as she catches up, she’ll zoom right past you, cackling away. And if you leave her behind, she will CALL YOU ON IT. So do not ever be even a step ahead of her. Ever. We’re trying to teach her that she doesn’t always have to be first, and there have been a lot of tears when she earns the consequence of being last. It’s hard being four.

Preston was kind of a wreck by the end of the walk. Poor guy was just not feeling all that wonderful.

The good thing about him, though, is that he can always smile, no matter how crappy he’s feeling.

Four years ago, we also had a nine-month-old baby and the Patriots were also playing the Giants in the Super Bowl. And they lost. I’m so disappointed for Noah. At least he’s got three little Patriot fans to cheer him up.

Notice Noah’s duck lips?

Noah went to his parents’ place to watch the game and I invited a couple ladies over to eat delicious food and not watch the game. We had the game on, but we weren’t paying too much attention to it. I glanced at the score every once in a while, too see how my husband the Pats were doing, but that’s about it. And then I glanced at the TV and saw penguins. Huh. I thought. Cute commercial. A couple minutes later the cute penguin commercial was still on. That’s when we noticed that Kesler had the remote and we were watching March of the Penguins. So observant we are.

In other news, I kind of miss sleeping. I mean, I know that having a baby means no sleeping and that’s completely okay, but some days it hits me really hard and I just want to sleep for many, many uninterrupted hours. Preston wakes three to six times every night to nurse. Yes, really. I’m lazy and nursing him to sleep is really easy. Except when it happens every 1.5-3 hours all night long. I could just co-sleep and make it easier, but I really hate co-sleeping.

I’ve got a plan, though. I just need to actually put it into action. I was prepared to this weekend, but I totally choked. I got myself 44oz (FORTY-FOUR!) of coke and planned to get little-to-no sleep. Phase One of my plan had three parts. When Preston woke, I’d try rubbing his back to put him back to sleep. If that didn’t work, I’d rock him. If that didn’t work, I’d nurse him — which (almost) always works.

I decided to start on Friday night. It was going along just fine. For the first couple hours. He woke, I rubbed his back, he went back to sleep. He woke, I rubbed his back, he went to sleep. He woke, I rubbed his back, he screamed. I rocked him, he screamed. I nursed him, and he went back to sleep. And then I went to bed and got lazy and tired and just nursed him the next time he woke. And the next time and the next time and the next time AND THE NEXT TIME. I suck at life, is what I’m saying.

Last night, though, hell froze over and he only woke twice. Twice! I think that’s a record! Noah and I have a deal going. I get up with Preston at night, and Noah gets up with him in the morning, usually between 6:00-6:30, but sometimes as early as 5:30. When Noah gets up with Preston, I get a whole hour and a half or so of uninterrupted, wonderful, fabulous sleep. And then I’m tired and all day I’m determined to sleep-train Preston that night, and then I get lazy and tired and just nurse him every time he wakes. Like I said, I suck at life.

Phase Two of the plan would have been letting him cry himself to sleep during the times he’d gone back to sleep without nursing the previous night(s) and trying again to rock him during the times he’d fed the previous night(s). Phase Three would have (eventually) been letting him cry it out completely until he was sleeping the whole night through. I just don’t want to go to letting him cry it out, cutting him off from night nursing cold turkey if he needs it. I talked to my doctor about it, and he said that some babies just need the nightly calories, especially if they’re breastfed.

I was spoiled the last time with a baby who loved to sleep. From Day One, Liliana slept all night, at first nursing once or twice. By about 6 weeks, she was sleeping eight straight hours. By about three months, she was sleeping about 12 hours. I KNOW, RIGHT?! I don’t remember much of how Kaylie was at nine months old, but I do know that she had a bottle of milk in the middle of the night until she was three and a half. AND SHE DIDN’T ROT HER TEETH OUT OF HER HEAD. But then, I never once nursed Liliana to sleep and never once gave her a bottle in her bed. She just didn’t need it. Because she was a complete angel baby, preparing us for when she’d inevitably become a four-year-old perpetual motion machine.

What I’m trying to say is that my son likes to be helped back to sleep and I know that I could train him to stop but I am too lazy to do it and so I am writing about it in hopes that he’ll just magically start sleeping through the night, because that’s how it works, right? You write about something awesome you kid is doing and they stop, and you write about something you hope your kid will do and they do it. Right? TELL ME I AM RIGHT.

***

There was the most incredible sunrise this morning. I will never, ever tire of Saskatchewan sunrises. This morning it looked like the sky was on fire — pink fire. At one point on my morning commute, the tallest city buildings were framed perfectly in the middle of the brightest part of the sunrise, as we viewed it from across a large field. I could sit there all morning and watch, although I’d be freezing cold and I’d probably get some weird looks as I sit there in my lawn chair in the middle of winter.

***

Noah had a super-awesome day yesterday for three very important (to him)(and therefore to the rest of us) reasons: (1) he’s part of fantasy hockey league (that he runs) and he is winning this week by quite a bit, (2) his Penguins won, and (3) his Patriots won and are on their way to the Super Bowl. He didn’t think that all three things could happen in one awesome day, but they did.

That last item is good news and bad news. It’s good news because the Patriots are in the Super Bowl, but it’s bad news because it’s a repeat of the 2008 Super Bowl in which the Patriots played the Giants and lost. And Noah had to watch them lose in front of a dozen of his man friends. He didn’t cry. On the outside. He’s going to his parents’ place to watch the Big Game, and I’m glad that he’ll have his mom around to celebrate with or to console him. (I’m not known for my sports sympathy.)(Although I will be watching the game.)(With ladies and babies.)

Also, I got some footage of Noah watching yesterday’s game and it is comedy GOLD. (Yes, Eric, I am sending it to you.)

***

I read this post from Ali this morning and I laughed out loud. She wrote about being a blogger with non-blogger friends and it is rad.

***

Miss Liliana has a really hard life. I was talking to my mom the other day and asked Liliana if she’d like to talk to Grannie. “Yea, then I can tell her about my bad life.” Bad things always happen to Liliana, like that time that Kaylie had Silly Putty (Silly Pudding, according to Liliana) and Liliana didn’t, or that time when she had to get dressed AND have breakfast and that was just too many things to do, or that time that Kaylie had the Lego ladder first and that JUST WASN’T FAIR, or when her beautiful artwork has to be removed from her wall, or when Kaylie asked for a foot-long Subway sandwich and Liliana flipped out because she didn’t want a foot sandwich, she wanted a peanut butter sandwich.

And sometimes she just likes to double-check things. “No one ever takes my brains away, right Mama?”

***

I added a 2012 Book List page up top there because one of my 2012 resolutions is to read 52 books, one for each week of the year. At this moment, I’m on Book Four and it’s the fourth week of January, so that’s good, right? I’d love some recommendations, though. I don’t think I read a single book last year and that is just not right. I’m reading the Harry Potter series right now, but what should I read next? What is your favorite book? What book do you think is a must-read?

Now I just need to pay off my library fines and I’m good to go.

Daddy’s teams are playing today.

It’s currently 2-2 in the second period of the Penguins/Capitals game, and the Patriots playoff do-or-die game starts in just under an hour.

Daddy’s a little nervous, but maybe his Little Patriot can help calm his nerves.

(If calming his nerves is even possible.)

“Poison.”

“You thought that up pretty quick.”

“I saw it on Bones.”

“Would it be quick or slow?”

“Probably slow. Or maybe quick. I have to think about this.”

“You kind of scare me, you know?”

“It would be an untraceable poison.”

“And what if you didn’t use poison?”

“I’d off you and then just get rid of the body. No body, no murder.”

“But you can’t lift me. I’m too heavy.”

“I’d cut you into pieces.”

*shakes head*

Blog posts can’t be used as evidence, right?

“Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”
“Cue the mouse!”
“I’m here, I’m here, the mouse is here!
“What’s the bowl for?”
“So you can see that I am not stirring. Note the hand never touches the spoon.”
-A Muppet Family Christmas

1. The parents of Liliana’s Sunday School class were told of a little performance the kids were doing after the service Sunday. Noah and I went upstairs right after the service and waited while the younger class did their thing. Liliana’s class then filed on to the stage. Liliana decided that her BFF Nathanael was in her way and hip-checked him. He would have fallen off the (foot-high) stage had a SS teacher not been right beside him.

You’ve seen that scene in Home Alone 2, right? The one where Buzz lights up Kevin’s ears during his school concert solo and then Kevin knocks over the entire choir? I couldn’t find the scene by itself, but you can see it in the first part of this clip:

Liliana totally pulled a Kevin McCallister. I’ve compared her to various fictional characters in the past — Dennis the Menace, Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes, the Tasmanian Devil — but this is the closest we’ve come to an exact replica. Except that Liliana is a girl. Anyway, here is her Sunday performance:

She’s the one who can’t keep still. She’s also the one who tells the other kids at the end, “Stand up again!” So helpful, my girl.

2. Preston wants to do nothing but stand. Except when he’s demanding that you help him walk. Or jump.

Or play with Christmas ornaments while attempting to pull the tree down on himself again.

Which is why we re-introduced Baby Jail.

3. We decorated gingerbread houses last week and for the first year I can remember, I let the girls eat them almost right away. Usually we let them get all dry and crusty and dusty and we pick the candy off and throw the gingerbread out. Not this year.

I picked the village of gingerbread houses so that maybe it would keep the girls from bickering over how one gingerbread house was decorated. Kaylie’s friend Abby helped out as well.

4. Noah and I spent quite some time this evening talking with this kid.

She’s dealing with some of the crap that I did at her age and it kills me that I can’t just *poof* solve all of her problems. I know, though, that teaching her to deal with her problems will benefit her much more than if I solve them for her. It just sucks seeing your kid in pain.

I’m glad, though, to have a partner in this parenting thing. I didn’t find single-parenting that difficult — I mean, it was still single-parenting, but Kaylie was an easy baby and a super-fun toddler. This whole parenting-a-pre-teen thing? Hardest thing I’ve done in my life. The in-laws were right when they said that the easy part is over. I’m thankful I have someone very unlike me to share parenting challenges with.

She’s such a great kid, though. She’s smart (her last report card was perfect)(literally)(I’m bragging now, aren’t I?), she’s witty, she knows the right time to roll her eyes at Noah or Russ, she cares about others’ feelings, she makes wise judgment calls. But, she’s also 10, and sometimes I want to send her to her Grannie for a month like I did when she was three.

(When she was three, she and I were living in Caronport, SK and my mom missed her terribly. So, when Nick and Teresa got married, Kaylie and I went to the wedding, and she flew home with my mom while I flew home by myself. I picked her up when I went home for Christmas. It was the worst month of my life. Noah tells me now that I was not a very nice person while Kaylie was gone. Well, DUH, I missed my baby! She was well taken care of, though, obviously, and she even came back completely potty trained!)

5. I got a rare shot of Liliana and Nathanael earlier today and I wanted to share it with you. It’s not blurry! They’re both looking! They’re smiling!

(Nathanael is the son of a good friend of mine.) Don’t they look adorable and innocent? Looks can be deceiving. (Although they are cute.) I’m pretty sure that no kid ever EVER has had as much energy as these two do. They are so hilarious and fun. And frustrating. I’m glad they have each other. They fight like siblings, tattle on each other, and get really sad when they have to part ways.

6. DID YOU SEE WHAT MY HUSBAND DID?

It’s one of those things where guys are like THAT IS AWESOME! and the womenfolk are like THAT IS CREEPY! Kaylie and Liliana love it and I … well … mustaches aren’t my favorite. Noah loves it, though, and I think he should shape his facial hair any way he likes. As long as he’s okay with me not liking it, which he totally is.

7. I’m doing a bunch of Christmas baking on Wednesday with a friend of mine. Since Noah is constantly asking me (nicely) to do Christmas baking (I have done some, not a lot), he is quite looking forward to Wednesday. And so am I. Noah’s more of a fan of the things his mom made when he was growing up, but since his mom lives a mere six kilometres away and Noah feels an entitlement to whatever is in his mom’s freezer (much to his dad’s dismay), I’m making WHATEVER I WANT. Ha! (I may tease Noah about being a mama’s boy, but in reality I’m hoping my son is a mama’s boy, too.)(So far, he is.)

8. Did you know that Christmas is only six sleeps away? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

Kaylie and I barely made it home on time, but with 15 minutes to spare, we did make it. She went right to bed, and I got ready for bed and walked into the living room as the clock struck midnight. Noah was there with his egg nog, ready to press play on the first Christmas song of the year. I went to bed, much to his dismay. He’d wanted me to stay up and decorate with him, but midnight was already three hours past my 9pm bedtime and I was exhausted after spending 3.5 hours in the ER with Kaylie.

Over the following days and the weekend, we unpacked all the Christmas boxes and put up most of the decorations. The girls were stoked to decorate their rooms.

The last thing we did was put up the tree. We put up our fake tree, much to Noah’s disgust. We wouldn’t be able to get a real one for another week at least, and he didn’t want to wait that long. The more Christmas for Mr. Christmas the betterer. Noah did most of the other decorating, but left the tree to me and the girls.

Noah’s favorite part is the village. He set it up last year, but likes it better when I do it. I was a grinchy grinch last year, so he did it himself, but this year he said I was in charge of it.

Preston has already rolled/backed himself into the Christmas tree and tried to pull it down on himself.

I’ve been in a bah humbug-type mood about Christmas thus far. Kind of like a what’s the point? about the tree and the decorating and the gifts and the baking. Christmas is a celebration of Jesus’ birth, so what does Santa Claus have to do with it? I’m bringing you down, aren’t I? Sorry about that, I’ve just been in Liliana mode — questioning everything. I try to keep most of it to myself, as Christmas is Noah’s VERY favorite time of year and I don’t want to ruin it for him.

The lights, though, aren’t they pretty?!

Oh, this year. It has been a hard one in many ways, but has also been the most incredible as well. Last year Noah and I did something that neither of us had done on purpose before. We decided to have a baby. I know how blessed/lucky/fortunate we are to be able to decide to have a baby and actually be able to have one. I have so many friends who struggle with this and it hurts my heart thinking about it. This is a subject very near and dear to me, being that my first pregnancy was very unplanned and very unwanted by everyone involved. (The whole being-pregnant thing was unwanted, not the baby. The baby was wanted from the first moment I learned of her existence.)

My pregnancy with Liliana was also unplanned, even though it happened when I was married. It was much more emotionally difficult than my first. I’d thought that the next time I had a baby, it would be a happy occasion, not one that heaped more shame and this-is-your-fault-ness on me. By the time Liliana was born, everyone was stoked about her arrival and it was a joyous, happy occasion, but the pregnancy itself was an emotional hell for me. I decided I never ever wanted to put myself through that ever again.

Two years ago, when Noah and I were going through marriage-ending hell, he mentioned something about wanting another baby. Not in a marriage-saving way, but in a family-completion way. I thought he was insane. Nobody had ever said anything like that to me before. My pregnancies with my girls had been met with disappointment and anger. I’d never done this having-a-kid-on-purpose thing. Many months later, when we were living in Saskatoon, he brought the subject up again. Nine months AND ELEVEN DAYS later, Preston was born.

So how does this tie in to being more of a grown-up this year? I had a baby this year on purpose. I felt more grown-up being ready to have a kid on purpose. It’s something that grown-ups do, right? The whole deciding-to-have-a-family thing? It’s an immature and irresponsible thing to get unexpectedly pregnant, right?

(This isn’t to say that anyone who gets unexpectedly pregnant is immature and irresponsible, that’s just how others made me feel with my previous pregnancies. It’s how I felt.) (Although I’ll admit that being pregnant at 17 is immature and irresponsible, I like to think that I was mature and responsible in how I dealt with it after the fact.)

My pregnancy with Preston, although it was, by far, my toughest physically, was my most wonderful one emotionally. I went through a lot of emotionally hellish things while I was pregnant, but not related to the pregnancy itself. Noah was over the moon when I showed him the positive test. He was excited to hear about every prenatal appointment and he dreamed with me about what our child would be like. He was so much more impatient than I was when our due date came and went and then eleven more days went by. I love that we got to do that together.

We are done having babies now, and I am so grateful that I got to experience it this last time. (I feel like I have to mention that I’m grateful for my girls, too, but you already know that.) It’s funny, though, that even though we’re done with the whole having babies thing, we’re not done naming them. We have names abundant and speak of these hypothetical children often. Apparently both of us are insane.

As for the how-have-you-remained-childlike aspect of the question … have you met us? There is your answer.