screamingweasels.net

2011-01-30T17:05:00.002-05:00

Dear three people that still come to this website -
Facebook killed my blog. I think it was more of a mercy killing than out and out homicide, so I've decided not to press charges. Haha. Seriously, I am just not going to renew my domain of screamingweasels.net. If you want to look at this blog in the future (why? I have no idea) you'll have to go the blogger way, which is screamingweasels.blogspot.com .

This blog has moved

2010-04-28T08:08:00.001-04:00

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2010-02-17T11:06:00.001-05:00

Mike: I told Celeste to sleep in Bri's bed tonight because there's still some crap (books) on it.
Me: Oh, I'm just going to put that crap in Katie's room.
Katie (from her room): I don't want the crap!

Hahaha, sooo funny.

2010-02-05T11:05:00.004-05:00

Hmm. Apparently it's been a REALLY long time since I updated here. Facebook is where I put most of the pictures now, and I guess it's sort of like mini-life updates there too. My harddrive died and all the pics I had scanned in of 2009 were lost, so those will not appear on this site. I'll run down the kid list I guess.

Brianna is doing well in school as usual. She's still enjoying tap, tae kwon do and Brownies. She did belt testing in January and is now a yellow belt. She'd like to take piano lessons too, and we're trying to figure out if this is a possibility. I need to get our piano fixed first. For Christmas she got a telescope. We've been trying to use it, but for the most part, all we've found is the moon. We need spring so we can fiddle with it without freezing to death.

Celeste is doing very well in school. She enjoys it, and is reading far above grade level. She doesn't like reading the way Brianna does, but that's ok. She's really into art stuff right now. She makes incredible things out of PlayMais. She likes dance and sparks ok, tae kwon do is still her favourite activity. She cried through belt testing, but still managed to show off her moves and get a yellow belt.

Little Katie is going to be registered for JK next week. She's so tiny, it's hard to beleive she'll be going to school next Sept. She LOVES her dancing class. She's finally started to get rid of diapers, just last week. We're not out of them completely yet, but hopefully soon. She also really likes to colour and play with her "princess girls" - a collection of disney princess figures.

Wesley is a fat lazy moose. He started taking steps Dec 28. However, he STILL doesn't walk much. Prefers to crawl. Won't give over to sippy cups and doesn't speak english. He was 26lbs in January.

Halloween was good, we had a Starfy, fairy, cinderella and a lawn gnome. Christmas was also good, the kids were spoiled as usual. Now we're heading up to Bri's 9th birthday. Crazy.

2009-10-31T13:13:00.002-04:00

It's been forever and six weeks since I updated here.

We didn't end up doing another session of swim lessons. Neither did I, the kids' dance studio was offering Adult Ballet so I took that instead. Katie missed her last two lessons due to camp pick up and being sick so I don't know if she officially passed. She's at the age for solo lessons now anyways.

Camp went ok. Bri had a great time as usual, but CeeCee didn't warm up to soccer. She loved the swimming in the afternoon, but just hated the soccer portion. It really surprised us. They gave everyone a medal at the end, and that made her say she wanted to go back next year. We've been talking about art camp instead maybe.

The older two girls spent two weeks in Newfoundland at the end of August, right after camp. As usual they were kind of tight lipped about it, but I think they had fun.

Somewhere in the summer Celeste got her ears pierced which was a bit of a disaster. So.much.screaming. I was just about to give up when she finally let them do it.

Katie's birthday was right before the girls left. It was small, but she got tasty ice cream cake.

School started, Celeste was a little aprehensive about that for some reason. She still goes every other day, she's in SK now. She started reading near the end of last year, but isn't all the interested in it.

Wesley had his birthday, which was an even smaller party than Katie's. He also got ice cream cake because at the time he wasn't eating solid food all that well. He's doing better at eating now, but still chokes fairly often. Still isn't walking or talking, though he crawls like a proper baby now.

Sparks and Brownies is going. Bri loves Brownies, and CeeCee sometimes likes Sparks. I'm the Brownie leader, so I have to spend a fair bit of time organizing that.

The suprise activity ended up being Tae Kwon Do. A studio opened up in the same plaza as dance. I got my hands on a flyer for their class schedule and noticed the times were pretty convenient for us and thought Celeste might like it. She flipped a lid when I merely suggested it, she was scared she'd have to break boards with her hands. Turns out, they start with their feet, ha! I managed to convince her to go watch a class while Brianna took dance, and halfway through she decided to join in. She LOVED it. Brianna said she wasn't interested in it at all, but after Celeste came home and said it was totally awesome she changed her mind. Mike somehow got sucked in too, and now some combination of them goes nearly every day of the week. Their first opportunity for belt testing is next Thursday. I don't know that any of them will be ready, but maybe. Brianna broke a board with her foot today. Celeste was too apprehensive. She kicked at it a few times, but not with hardly any force. She kicks the foam targets much harder.

As for me, I still go to yoga once a week. I'd like to go twice, but it's just been too busy. I have a midterm on Monday, school seems to be going well, but my mark on that will prove it. Ballet is fun, but I'm not sure how long she'll keep offering the class, it's pretty small. It's just me and her best friend. :)

2009-08-15T13:37:00.002-04:00

The next set of lessons is finished for kid 1 and 2. Neither of them passed. CeeCee was the smallest kid in her class and one of her problems was just she can't quite swim the 10m required to move up. However, she can apparently swim those 9m straight down, ha. She went the furthest in the deep end out of her class. Katie's lessons are still going, she has two more. She easily went in the pool all by herself though, so she should have no problem moving on to Sea Turtle. Normally we'd quit swim now because Dance and Girl Guides start up in Sept, but Mike is thinking they should do one more before the snow hits, so we'll see. It depends on when I can set them up. I am also going to take the first set of adult lessons, but those are at 9pm, so no conflicts there. And I'd also like to sign Bri up for a class in stop-motion photography...there's so many cool things to do and not enough time/money.

Camp starts next week. Bri is excited, CeeCee is a little aprehensive. I'm sure she'll have fun though.

Wesley is humongous, he stands up and cruises the furniture now. He still crawls funny though. He won't eat anything solid, unless he finds it on the floor.

We do have guppy babies, born today!

2009-07-24T09:38:00.002-04:00

The kids finished their swim lesssons. Neither passed (except that CeeCee passed 1 on the first day), so Bri will do SK3 again and CeeCee SK2. Bri doesn't have much to work on, so I am thinking she may pass it this next time. They start another 2 week set next week. Katie is doing well at swimming, I think. Mike's been taking her the last couple times. This week she is supposed to spend half the class without a parent in the pool, so we'll see.

Somehow the kids made faces at Mike or something and we have a bunch of fish. We have six guppies. Perhaps we will have guppy babies.

2009-07-07T18:19:00.002-04:00

The 2008 pics should all be in working order now. I hope to work on the 2009 set sometime next week maybe. But let's not expect miracles here.

***IMPORTANT NOTICE***
Serena changed her name to Celeste (which is her middle name), or she will accept CeeCee as a nickname. She asked for a year, so whatever.

The kids started swimming lesssons this week. Katie goes weekly on Sats, it's a transitional program where she's supposed to end up without a parent in the water with her. She still freaks when the instructors touch her, so we'll see on that. Bri and CeeCee are doing a daily set for the next two weeks. CeeCee's instructor told me after her first class today that she is very good and will be working on SK2 programming instead of 1. So she skipped a level. It makes her very happy, and Bri not so much. Poor Bri.

2009-07-02T15:46:00.003-04:00

My webspace is such a pain. It doesn't tell you when it's full. Instead, it pretends to upload things (the file name will appear in the list). So frustrating. I deleted 2005, but that's still not enough. I'll have to take out 2006 too. I don't have time right now, so who knows when that'll happen. There's some pics there now, about half, most from the early part of 08.

2009-07-02T12:26:00.002-04:00

Working on getting the pics from 2008 up. Sad that a whole year was negelcted. My webspace is kind of a pain, so we'll see what happens. Blogger isn't showing the 2008/2009 tabs (for me anyways) yet either. There is nothing in 2009 yet, so don't bother looking. Might get to those before 2011. :P

2009-06-25T15:52:00.002-04:00

Ok, it's been a long time. I know. I'm busy.

Wes had that 6 month check, and he was only 17 1/2lbs. Katie was a shocking 27lbs, so I guess it might take him longer than we thought to catch up to her. Wes is now 9 months old, and looking very fat. He "crawls" in this weird way, but he gets where he wants. He pushes with one foot while holding his other leg in the air. His tummy never leaves the ground. He got three new teeth a few weeks ago.

Serena had her 5th birthday. My mom was in town that week by coincidence, so she got a sushi dinner. We also went back to the butterfly conservatory. She had a tea party of all things with a couple of her school friends. Her favourite present was a remote controlled tarantula. She's a weird kid. She's learned how to read, and likes to do so, but needs prodding to try new books. She'll be in SK in the fall with the same M/W ever other Friday configuration as this year.

Katie is still a terror. If she doesn't get her way there are lots of fits. She has asked to use the toilet a few times, but hasn't actually done anything while there. Darn. She has been horribly traumatized by Mike's mowing of "her flowers" - the dandelions.

Bri is kind of huge. It's hard to beleive she's going to be in grade 3 next year. We've just found out she'll be in the 3/4 split (thank god). But she won't be in the same class as her best friend anymore. She did another 3 days at the enrichment center and this time I got a report back saying they love her and would be happy to have her back again next year.

All the girls just finished a set of swimming lessons. Katie loves the pool now, but isn't all that interested in the lessons part. She's signed up to do a transition from parent and tot to just tot. Considering she wigged every time the last instructor got anywhere near her, I'm not holding my breath. Serena passed her Salamader (3rd try) and will be doing Sunfish. Salamander + Sunfish = Swim Kids 1, it's just for the younger group. Bri passed SK2 on her second try and will be moving up to SK3. I think 4 will probably be the level I want them to pass before they can opt out of lessons. I still want to take some of my own.

I am still doing hot yoga once or twice a week and enjoying that. I finished my Stats class and did suprisingly well. I'm in a holding pattern again now as I wait to see if I can switch majors (from arts to science, still psychology). It's nice to have the summer off anyways. I signed on to help lead Brianna's Brownie troup in the fall as well, because I'm not busy enough. Otherwise, they would have shut down and that would have been lousy.

Mike is mostly finished with the major house stuff, he does have to redo the old roof but is now kicking himself for waiting for the actual summer weather to arrive.

2009-06-18T21:52:00.000-04:00

testing to see if Rob broke my website again.

2009-03-19T17:29:00.002-04:00

Bri went and turned 8, which I do not appreciate. She had a tie dye party that seemed to go well, especially since Jenn came and did teacher-y weirdness with the kids while I ran around getting everything totally set up/cleaned up. Bri had wanted an ice cream cake since Katie had one, and she was so excited to eat it, she blew out the candles before we'd even finished singing. She got some money for her birthday and wanted to go to Chapters and get some books. With some prodding we got her out of the 5-7 section (many of her fav series' are there) and into the 8-11. She's just started her first book that she can't possibly read in one sitting. It's Inkheart, which is supposed to be good. I haven't read it yet, but she says it is.

Wesley is soooooo fat. He's wearing some 9 month clothes now. We'll find out how fat he really is Monday, but we suspect over 20lbs. He's happily eating fruit for lunch now, with veggies for dinner and cereal at bedtime. I'd like to move the cereal to the morning, but there's no time for that while school's in.

It's March Break and we have been doing some March Breaky stuff. We went to the butterfly place to eat bugs (small amounts of bugs, but bugs) and tonight we're going swimming. Yesterday it was nice out, so we went to the park - but today it is snowing!

2009-03-06T17:40:00.001-05:00

*watching show about praying mantises that opens with the allusion they will eat you*
Me: Praying mantises won't eat you.
Bri: Wouldn't they though? Wouldn't they if they had the chance?

Haha, it was just the way she said it. Won't somebody think of the children?

2009-02-27T11:08:00.002-05:00

Wesley is a big fat baby who loves food. He finished off his box of rice cereal and moved on to oats, which he doesn't seem to like as much. He also tried sweet potatoes the same day (24th) and loves those. Today is a new veggie day...probably squash. He has a second tooth that is almost through but not quite.

Big news is we're allowed to move into our addition any time now. Just working on getting some carpet down and doors on the bedrooms. Hopefully we'll all have new rooms this weekend.

2009-02-13T17:37:00.002-05:00

I think this is the longest I have gone between blog posts. I have to get better at that, as this is primarily a means to keep memories for me. Before the kids all grow up and I forget everything.

Things have been very busy, between the house and my school stuff. I don't really seem to get a lot of free moments where I am not holding a baby, cooking or doing laundry. There's a lot of laundry. The good news is, the house is soooooo close to move in ready. That will make a dramatic difference in our day to day lives.

Brianna got three more badges at Brownies, one for cooking, dancing and taking care of a pet. She is really enjoying that group. She is also still enjoying her dance class very much. I'm glad to see she hasn't picked up my bad trait of "if I suck at this, I'm just not going to do it". For Christmas, she got a present from Santa she didn't think she was allowed to have (a DS game, she wasn't previously allowed to use my DS) and she just said "Here mom, I'm not allowed to play this, so you can." No tantrum. I'm pretty sure I would have thrown a tantrum. I haven't heard any more about gifted opportunities for her this year, but I am going to speak to her teacher/VP very soon about that.

Serena had a report card, and while she claims to hate school, she is doing quite well there. The teacher says she likes to play in the "house" area the most. She is also still doing dance and likes it. Her energy is hard to control though, I think she may be better suited to something else, but I'm kind of aprehensive to put her in martial arts. ;) For Christmas Serena got a robotic bug which she thinks is the best thing ever.

Katie is getting more verbal, and says very funny things. Our favourite is "I can't like it!" She still wants to dance, but has to wait until Sept. Swimming lessons are probably still out as in December she refused to get anywhere near a pool. She is the little mommy and likes to help take care of Wesley. I don't think she's grown in the past year, she is still so tiny. Katie loves her giant makka pakka she got for Christmas, as well as the talking Upsy Daisy.

Wesley, obviously, has changed the most. He is growing so quickly. He is now 16lbs. He caught a cold from his sisters and ended up visiting the hospital for nebulizer treatments for RSV. He's all better now. He can roll in both directions, though he doesn't do it often. He reaches for stuff, but almost exclusively with his right arm. He loves rice cereal and just grew himself a tooth today. He is just the happiest little baby, him.

I know I have mumbled something about pictures repeatedly, and I'm sure it'll happen eventually. Maybe after I finish this stupid math class.

2008-12-05T17:05:00.002-05:00

Wesley is the fattest baby ever. I'm not basing this on anything scientific, merely on looks. He hasn't been weighed since he was six weeks. But he's pudgy. He had his shots and hardly complained. Katie didn't complain much either. Serena went all drama queen though and complained for three days.

Bri got another Brownie badge for cooking. Even though she burnt it. Heh.

Bri got a report card (she gets three, but Serena only gets two so I'll get hers later) and I had parent teacher interviews in the twlight zone today. Bri's wasn't, we knew she is both a genius and a jerk. She apparently makes snide comments now when other kids get the answers wrong. Which is not cool, but I can't help laughing. Her teacher said she has started looking into the enrichment stuff again, but that's the VPs job, and due to some upheaval in the school office right now it looks like that might have gotten shelved for right this second. She'll bring it up again in the new year. Serena, on the other hand, what the hell. Her teacher probably thinks I'm some sort of hardass that doesn't tolerate less than military precision. The whole time she went on and on about how awesome Serena is, always doing what she's supposed to be doing and paying attention and helping others and is the world's most dependable kid. And I'm like are there two Serena's in this class? Am I being Punk'd? I come home and she's hanging from the ceiling fan screaming and throwing little people at her sisters. She's good for everyone but me and then people think she's so hard done by. Evil kid.

Katie is becoming a tiny diva. She regulary demands chocolate, coffee and shopping.

2008-11-16T09:29:00.002-05:00

As usual, I meant to come here and post about something weeks ago and am just now getting around to it.

Wes had a six week appt wherein he was 11lbs 9oz. He is a very fat baby. He's sleeping through the night more often than not now, which is excellent. I am sleepy. He gets his first set of shots (and Katie and Serena for good measure) tomorrow. Mainly because I pitched a fit about calling over a week in advance for an appointment anytime during an entire week's span and was told I still couldn't have one. Hello, what's the point of having a doctor if I can't see her?

Bri did her badge testing at Brownies and got a badge for rock collecting. She was in the parade this weekend with them as well. I didn't go watch because it was pouring rain and I'm mean like that.

Serena went to her first birthday party and apparently had fun.

Katie is talking more. Her favourite thing is to go shopping. The best thing she says right now is she calls her detangling spray "my hairpoo". Heh. She also informed me yesterday "No Baby K! Katie!" So I guess she doesn't want to be a baby anymore.

I have the pics all scanned in now, I just have to code them. There's some more than the ones I put on Facebook, but it could still be awhile.

2008-10-26T16:41:00.002-04:00

A week and a half ago, I took Wes in for a 4 week appt. They don't usually do those things, but they wanted to get the hearing test done. He hears just fine, and was 10lbs 2oz. We have the disharge appt this week, then it's on to our new family doctor, who last I heard was booking appointments into 2010.

Bri also had Brownie enrollment which was cute. She took it very seriously and practiced the stuff she had to recite even though it was written down in front of her. She is really enjoying Brownies and the leaders are really good again. She made a bird feeder last week. Next week is badge testing.

I know everyone wants more pictures of everyone, and I have two rolls of film to scan and put up. Wes is starting to settle into more of a schedule and allowing me to put him down more, so I may actually manage to do that before next year. We did take the kids for professional pics, but they were all uncooperative and they didn't turn out so hot.

The house is continuing. Mike has done a good chunk of the drywall and we hope to be moved in before Christmas. We'll see.

2008-10-04T14:23:00.002-04:00

Wes had his two week check up on Weds. He's doing just fine, up to 9lbs 1oz. He couldn't do the hearing test though, as it requires the baby to be quiet and still (ie sleeping) and he wasn't.

The older kids love school, and dance. Bri is enjoying Brownies as well.

2008-09-21T21:42:00.002-04:00

Hooray, I finally had a baby! Wesley Michael decided to show up at 2:31am on Sept 17. He was 8lbs 8oz and 20.5" long, our biggest yet. So far he's a very good baby and the girls are just all over him. They all want to feed him, and Katie is very interested in making sure he is ok. We went out today, and Mike was just going to walk Katie to the door and come back for the baby, but Katie wouldn't go until he got Wes out too. She was afraid we were going to leave him in the car. The birth went well, I'll put the full birth story down next, so don't read it if you're squeamish. Other than that, kids are still going to school and the house is still being built.

Wesley's Birth Story

I started having sporadic contractions on the morning of the 16th. It felt a whole lot like when I had Katie, so I was quite certain that the baby was coming that evening. I went to meet the teacher night and finished my laundry and stuff. At 9pm I decided to start timing my contractions. They were five minutes apart, so I decided to page Michelle because of my history of fast labours. She got here at 10, and I was 4cm dilated, so we count that as the start of active labour. My contractions kept up at 4-5min apart for the next couple hours. They were definitely contractions, but they weren’t that painful. I wasn’t able to walk through them, but I could still talk through them. At about 12:30am (so it’s now the 17th) she checked me again, and I was 5cm, stretchable to 6. Which was kind of disappointing. We decided that since it was late, we’d go ahead and break my waters. I’m sure he still would have come before morning, even if we hadn’t, but it probably would have taken 2-3 more hours. For another hour or so my contractions got more intense. I think I pushed for half an hour, Mike thinks it was more like 10 minutes – I’ll ask the midwife when she gets here (forgot to ask). Anyways, I found my bed to be very uncomfortable for baby having, it is just too squishy. Michelle sent me to the bathroom to try pushing on the toilet a couple times because I had a small lip of cervix left. I didn’t really like that much either, but I did it. I decided to try lying down, sort of on my side. Two or three more pushes and his head was out. I remember Katie’s head being much easier and hurting less – but Mike says I remember things nicer than they were, so who knows. His head is of a normal size, but it’s probably bigger than Katie’s was. Then everyone went a little nutso, and they yanked my legs back. Carole (the second midwife) apologized for pushing on my stomach later, but I don’t remember her doing that. I remember Michelle reaching in, and me being like WTF? And none too happy about it. Apparently he attempted to be born both shoulders at once, and there was concern he’d get stuck. He popped out pretty quick with the yanking, but showed his displeasure by pooping immediately. Wesley Michael was born at home at 2:31am Sept 17. He was a ginormous 8lbs 8oz and 20.5” long.

Post-partum wise, I had no tearing, which I think is amazing considering his size and preferred method of exit. I did however have a bit of a hemmorhage again, which sucked (did check this with the midwife, it was 700mL, which was less than with Serena). This time I got two shots of oxytocin and uterine massage, hooray. I narrowly avoided an IV. It was decided that my bladder was in the way of my uterus shrinking because after I went to the bathroom I stopped bleeding.

Wes has hair, but it’s not as dark or abundant as Katie’s was. We’ll see what it looks like after a bath. I think he will have blue eyes like the girls, his eyes don’t look the way Katie’s did. IMO, he doesn’t currently look anything like any of them either. The midwives think he looks like Mike, but I’m not sure of that. All Mike’s baby pictures are unfortunately packed too, so I can’t even go look. The girls are quite enamoured with him, Serena especially. They are all dying to hold and feed him. Katie gave him kisses and named all his body parts.

2008-09-14T19:26:00.002-04:00

No, there's no baby yet. I'm now overdue which is kind of weird. But whatever, the baby will come when it comes.

Bri has had almost two weeks of school now. She's happy with her class. Meet the teacher night is Tues, so maybe I'll get to go to that and see what's up.

Serena had her first day and said it was really great. She starts her regular schedule of every other day and alternate fridays tomorrow. She hates that she doesn't get to go everyday, at least so far. That may change. Her teacher said she was really eager to do the "school" type activities and seemed disappointed when they did free play stuff.

They started dance yesterday. Both are in the tap/jazz combo class again. Serena's class is only two, so she better stick with it this year! Katie really wants to dance, but she has to wait. There will be a mom and toddler class starting up in October that we are going to sign up for.

Bri's Brownies starts Weds night, and that pretty much fills us up for extra curriculars for this year. The nice thing is if next year Serena wants to do Sparks, it's at the same time as Brownies in the same place.

2008-08-31T08:49:00.002-04:00

Back to school starts Tuesday. Bri starts grade 2 that day, but Serena doesn't start going until the 10th. She has meet the teacher on the 3rd though, which she's looking forward to. I haven't seen the kindergarten rooms at this school, so I'm looking forward to it too.

They finished their swimming lessons last week as well. Neither of them passed, I didn't expect them to. Bri missed two classes, which didn't help. Bri got just over half the requirements for Swim Kids 2, it'll still probably take two more classes to pass because she'll need the first one as a refresher in the spring. No more swimming until then as we'll be too busy with Brownies and Dance. Serena only had four deficiencies, so she might pass next time. I have a choice whether to put her in Salamander again or Swim Kids 1, the difference being age groups. I'll probably keep her with the younger kids, but it's nice to have the option for scheduling purposes.

Katie turned two last weekend and got her usual third kid crappy party, ha. Mike's mom and Fred were here, so at least she had guests this year. She had cupcakes that looked like frogs. I got her some toys from a show she likes (unfortunately, it's like Teletubbies - I love the Brits, but their children's programming is horrible) and she hasn't put them down all week. She's starting to talk a lot more now, which is making life easier.

I've got 2 weeks left until my due date. My midwife is quite convinced this won't be another due date baby, but I have too much to do between now and then, so it had better be. ;)

2008-08-16T12:06:00.002-04:00

Picked up Bri from camp. She apparently had a good time, but I think it's going to take her a few days to regulate to normal. They were up and doing stuff at 7:30am every day, and Bri isn't really a morning person. I heard she was the last to get up today. She had a bit of a meltdown because she ran out of money and didn't make a Build-a-Bear - but seriously here. One, I sent her with $40, she picked herself a tshirt, a different stuffed toy and a boatload of candy. Two, WTF is Build-a-Bear doing at camp? Anyways. She also didn't want to leave, which between that and the lack of sleep all week was probably more of the problem.

As usual getting info out of her is like getting blood from a stone, but I have learned that she does want to go back next year. It rained too much and she didn't get to do a few things because of it, one being the rock wall. She doesn't like snorkeling (though I got a card saying she passed the first level) but loves the water trampoline.

School starts up in a couple of weeks, it's hard to beleive summer is over.

2008-08-11T10:21:00.001-04:00

So we shipped Bri off to camp this morning. She's gone until Saturday afternoon. Hope she has fun!

2008-08-05T09:33:00.002-04:00

I've been meaning to come and post about stuff here for awhile, but I never quite get around to it. Sigh. We've been having a moderately busy summer.

We went to the zoo at the end of June, which was really fun. It was Katie's first time at the zoo, and she claims we saw cows, dogs, cats and mice. I'm not quite sure how a giraffe looks like a cow, but I can sort of see how a wallaby looks like a mouse. The best part was the stingray exhibit. You get to go stick your arms in a big tank and poke at stingrays. Katie thought it was awesome. She kept saying "they're coming! Nice fishy!" and then laughing hysterically when they swam by. Could have stayed in there all day. She and Serena also rode a pony and Bri rode a camel again. I am working on the pictures, but I'm still at Christmas in my album. :/

Bri did two overnight camping trips, one for one night and one for two. Both were with Girl Guides. The first she got eaten by mosquitos, but is apparently very lucky as she didn't itch at all. The second was real camping in tents. She got a touch of dehydration or heat stroke and didn't feel very well one day, but otherwise had a good time. She came home with badges to put on her brownie uniform she doesn't even have yet. She is going for a week of away camp on Monday. This one is through the YMCA and she'll get in a group to write and produce a play as well as do "normal" camp stuff. She's been looking forward to it.

We also went on vacation to Manitoulin island for a friend's wedding last weekend. We were kind of worried about the amount of time in the car and we were sharing a hotel room for two nights. But everything went so much better than could be expected. The kids were up late with wedding activities and crashed out easily. They sat quietly for the wedding and the parts of the reception they needed to. Bri caught the bouquet, and Katie stayed up late dancing. It was a little chilly, so we didn't get to swim much. We took the ferry there, but went around on the way home so we could stop at Science North. The kids enjoyed it, and if we lived anywhere near the place we'd go more often. They had lots of neat stuff that you could spend a day playing with. We also didn't have time to go to Dynamic Earth, so we'll have to go back again someday.

I had that ultrasound, and the baby is definitely a boy. I don't know about the kidneys, though I'm guessing since my midwife just called with my iron level results and didn't mention it, it's fine. My iron is low as usual, so I just need to up the suppliments.

The house is getting closer to finished. The siding is done for this year, and Mike's moved on to insulating. I think maybe we'll get in around October. The drywall and stairs will probably take some time.

2008-06-28T11:28:00.002-04:00

School is finally out. Hurray! No more getting up in the morning. Bri's report card was all good as expected. Straight A+ in reading. Her lowest mark this term was a B (in art of all things) and overall a B- (that was first term gym). She's annoyed that her art mark went from an A- to a B, but she is sloppy and rushes stuff a lot (sound familiar anyone?). They learned what teacher they are getting next year, I'm pretty sure she'll be in the grade 2/3 split.

Serena's first day of school will be Sept 10. Should be interesting. I got the days I wanted, she'll be going every Monday and Wednesday as well as alternate Fridays. I'm not sure how this is supposed to be easier than every day half days, but my choices are limited to send her, try to drive her somewhere else or not send her to school at all. Bah. Let's take bets on how often I send her the wrong Friday or forget it's her Friday.

They finished their swimming yesterday, and Bri is very excited that she finally passed Swim Kids 1. She's done that one three times. Of course, that messed up my nice little schedule for the summer as they don't have SK2 at the same time and they won't allow her to attend Katie's class with me. So, Katie got dropped from swimming this summer, poor kid. I went back and looked at Serena's swim report card from last class because something looked kind of weird - it appears she is getting worse at swimming, ha. The session she finished three weeks ago she had 4 deficiencies. The one she finished yesterday, she had 11. Heh. Different teachers, and it doesn't really matter how many things she's unable to do, she's not ready to move up a level, period. She's just not relaxed in the water. The new session starts the week after next and goes until the end of August, and that'll be the last swimming until next year. Bri has Brownies and Dance already, and Serena may do Dance as well again.

2008-06-15T09:00:00.003-04:00

I forgot something. Bri had her end of year reading assessment done and she now tests out of the primary grade range. So her teacher was unable to give me an exact level, but she said it was probably somewhere about mid-grade 4. She gets her report card not next week, but the week after.

Also school related, Serena has Kindergarten Info Night tomorrow.

I forgot more things. Serena had her birthday in between blog posts there. We went to the butterfly conservatory, which she liked, but I think she was disappointed she couldn't touch any butterflies. She also was wanting to play with caterpillars, but that wasn't an option either.

2008-06-15T08:45:00.002-04:00

Summer is finally here, hurray. We've been pretty busy wrapping up everything, but the summer is going to be busy too. Bri finished Sparks a few weeks ago, and Dance is done next weekend. The studio is selling DVDs of the recital, so when I get mine I'll be sure to share.

Serena finished her swimming. She did pretty good for a kid who spent half the classes crying. She does have to repeat the class, but she only missed three things. Front and back floats and back glide. I've just found out that her class is pretty much the same level as Bri's, just for younger kids (they split it in two - Salamader + Sunfish = Swim Kids 1), so it's no surprise that she needs to repeat. The both of them start again next week. We're going to do a set of daily lessons, and then go back to once a week for the rest of the summer. Katie hasn't had lessons because there aren't as many time slots for her age group and it's not been possible to line them all up. She is still needing a parent in the pool obviously, so I have to have it at the same time as the others'.

Speaking of Katie, she has a favourite book now. It's interesting, because it's from the same series that Bri's first favourite book was from. Bri liked Moosey Moose, and Katie likes Sluggy Slug. If she goes in her room for any reason she goes and gets "Slugh Slugh" first. She's also memorized it (very simple book) just like Bri did. But either Bri was slightly older or just had better vocabulary skills, because Katie's "reading" of the book is more basic.

#4 seems to be coming along just fine. It's hard to beleive it's the last trimester already. Somehow, I don't think I mentioned it here, but we are having a boy. Least that's what the ultrasound said. I have to have another in about a month, so maybe we can get a recheck on that at the same time. ;) This baby has enlarged kidneys, just like Bri did. And just like Bri's did, I expect them to resolve before birth.

2008-04-15T12:20:00.002-04:00

Not too much new around here. Bri got her report card, it's virtually identical to her last one. I think they only changed the few things, just to change them. It was also written by a different teacher, so that may be why. Her writing and visual arts went down from A- to B+ and phys ed went from a B- to a B+, which made me laugh. Her homework completion went from E to G, which is warrented, she's sloppy with her homework. I'm not a mom that sits and watches her like a hawk to make sure everything is done correctly, I don't think you learn much that way. Anyhoo, it's another excellent report card, so yay.

Serena started swimming lessons again, with the bribe that we'll take her to a waterpark if she can get through them this time. ;) She has the same male teacher she had last year, which she doesn't like. I'm pretty sure he teaches all of the classes at her level though, so tough. Last time she spent the first 10-15 min hardly in the water, a second female lifeguard came to help out. However, the last 15 min she had a great time, so the teacher says we should keep her in that level and keep bringing her. She's just very slow to warm up. It drives me nuts, because when the class is over, she doesn't want to get out of the pool!

Katie is starting to talk a little more, but she still talks mostly in baby talk. If you ask her where she's going she'll tell you "I go bye" and wave. It's cute.

The house is coming along, it's a big job though, and Mike has had a lot of work stuff going on, so what can you do. He's hoping to finish putting all the windows in on Friday and finish the electrical rough in soon.

I decided to go back to school, so on May 1 I start my BA in psychology and women's studies. It's all done online (except exams, which can be done at the local U) through a fully accredited U in Alberta. It's nice because being online, I have up to 6 months to finish, or as little time as I need. And I can work here after the kids go to bed and stuff. Don't ask me what I'm going to do after that, I'm not sure yet. Since I figure it's going to take me until 2014 (sigh), I'm just not going to look that far ahead. There's a lot of options for post grad work, and having a BA gives you a bit of a jump for office jobs as well.

2008-03-25T10:07:00.002-04:00

Too busy to post stuff here, I suppose. I keep meaning to, and then don't.

Bri got asked to do a gifted workshop at another school. She's not all that forthcoming with info, but they are researching penguins for some reason. She has one more day there on Friday, and then I'll get a little note about it. Report cards are also due soon. Her birthday was a few weeks ago, she had her party at an indoor playground here. I think Katie had the most fun.

Serena is still kind of bored without Bri home during the day. She plays with Katie, but it's not the same, especially since Katie still doesn't talk much. She liked March break, where Bri was home for a week. She is going to be trying swimming again starting next weekend. I hope it works out this time.

Katie is getting bigger, but as I said above, she doesn't talk much. She has maybe 10 or 15 words she uses, but most of them are useless - like she says no in answer to every question. It would be helpful if she could actually tell us what she wants, but so far no good. She loves to colour now, it's what she does all day. According to the scale at Mike's dad's house, she weighs about 25lbs. She's tiny though, 18 month clothes are still a little on the big side. She was a big fan of easter, though she only wanted to pick up the little eggs.

#4 is due Sept 12, and seems to be coming along. The gender ultrasound won't be until May sometime.

The house is coming along, we're still hoping to move in this summer. There's a lot of work left though, and Mike has several business trips in the next couple of months.

2008-01-15T19:05:00.001-05:00

I suppose I should write about Christmas before I forget how it was completely.

My brother and his wife were here, so that was good. The kids were surprisingly well behaved, no over stimulation meltdowns, which we were expecting. Katie refused to open any presents, the only thing she showed interest in wasn't for her. Her favourite present is a big nubby ball that will be for outside once Spring comes.

Mike (brother) kept laughing at Serena because all her presents involved bugs. She likes bugs, what can I say? Currently her favourite present is a bug pop up book, but I think she'll be impressed with the ant farm once the ants come in the mail.

Bri's favourite was a reindeer webkinz I got her. The kids are addicted to Webkinz.

They got a lot of presents to share. One of which was a mold for igloo blocks. We made an igloo, and it melted.

Bri went back to school, which of course she likes. She is staying in dance, but Serena won't even entertain the idea of going anymore, so she's done.

Katie is talking a little bit. She says hi and bye and all done. She wants nothing more than to be as big as her sisters. She follows them around and mimicks them. It's cute.

2007-12-21T17:05:00.001-05:00

I have been procrastinating posting, though I don't really know why. Pre-Christmas lazyness I suppose.

I'll start with the oldest kid and go down the list I suppose. Bri is loving school, as usual. She got her first report card, and it is good. All A's except in gym (surprise!) and french, but french was a B+. We are still discussing enrichment activities for Bri in school. She will be starting a "Mad Science" program in Jan. Every Friday all the kids who's parents coughed up the money get to go somewhere for their second nutrition break (aka lunch) and participate in science experiments. Magnets and volcanos and slime and such. I'm sure she'll love it. She's still doing dance and Sparks which she enjoys. The biggest news for Bri is that she got glasses last weekend. We knew it was coming, and they are very cute. It's only been a week and it's like she's always worn them. She got pink ones. I don't have any pics yet, and probably won't until her birthday or something, heh. The camera has a brand new roll of film in it.

Serena is her usual crazy. When she found out Bri was getting glasses and she wasn't, she cried. She is a good big sister to Katie, helps her climb on stuff she shouldn't be. She's dropping out of dance, which is a bummer. She is so cute dancing. For some reason she is unable to articulate properly, she just doesn't want to go anymore. Oh well, she did it for three months, which is pretty good I suppose.

Katie is getting bigger by the day. She runs around like a crazy fool, and she keeps climbing on the table. She is finally starting to say stuff, but nothing important. All she says is Hi, Bye, and uh oh. And still the occasional Maaahm!

Mike finished the house framing in November, beating the snow. We've started phase 2, which is getting an occupancy pass. That means the house has to be done up to the drywall all over. Lots of work, but Mike thinks he'll be done in the spring.

2007-11-02T13:49:00.000-04:00

Halloween has come and gone. Pictures up maybe next year. :P

We had a party for all the girls in Bri's class. 7 came, so we had copious amounts of princesses running around for several hours. It actually went very well, and I plan on doing it again next year.

Halloween itself was nice, but the neighbourhood doesn't have a lot of kids. Probably because the school takes up a whole block, and directly across the street is a large retirement community. So now I am making myself sick eating leftover candy.

Bri was a penguin, Serena was a ghost and Katie was a peacock. Katie went to a few houses then stayed home to hand out candy. She likes handing out candy.

2007-10-14T10:24:00.000-04:00

Things said by Serena recently:

"At tapdance, we're not allowed to run in class. The teacher always says, 'no running!'. So, we run when she's not looking."

"Stop teasing my waffle!"

I knew it had been awhile since I updated here, but I didn't realize it had been a month. D'oh. Things have been busy, as usual. Mike is getting ever closer to finishing up the shell of the house. The old house is getting jealous and doing everything in it's power to not let that happen. The main drain is partially clogged, the washer died, and the bathroom sink and toilet leak. Mike was wanting a month long reprieve from renos, but I don't know that he'll get it. It's going to take a month to fix all the stupid things in the old half.

I have a stupid part time job, which is half crappy. Well, the pay is crappy, so it's like 3/4 crappy. I don't mind the actual work, but everyone there is an idiot, and about 16. Wah.

Kids are kids, they are doing just fine. Bri is humongous and turning into a real kid. She lost her fall jacket already, and she starts homework next week. Serena is crazy as usual, and is really into movies right now. Katie is walking all over the place, but will still crawl if she thinks it'll be easier. She still doesn't talk. She says "mom" and "dad" but doesn't direct it soley at us. They are her most common babble words.

2007-09-19T10:05:00.000-04:00

The Katie, she walks. But only a little bit. She still prefers to crawl, but it talking more steps and only crawling when she falls over. She can't get to standing by herself yet though, she needs to pull up on something first. For posterity, I shall record here that she took her first real steps on the 14th. Because her baby book is somewhere in the basement.

Bri started Sparks and as expected, she loves it. Tonight is night 2 and she has her little uniform and is very excited.

Tomorrow is meet the teacher night, I'm looking forward to that. Bri got a reading buddy a few days ago, and I think that's going ok. The other girl (who's name is Brianne) is in grade 5 at least, so should be a few reading levels up on Bri. From what I gather, the buddy reads a book aloud, pointing at words they want the younger kid to try to read. Bri said she read all her words and her buddy kept calling her "smart girl".

Katie's name, as it turns out, is very popular in Waterloo. Every second kid is named Katie. I guess I'm going to have to start calling her Katherine or something. The baby next door is named Kate (she's a bit older), Jenn's daughter is Caity (Caitlin) and Bri's new best friend at school is Katie (Katherine). Gah.

2007-09-12T10:09:00.001-04:00

Strange happenings round these parts. Brianna has informed me with no uncertain terms, that I am not permitted to put candy with her snack unless she asks.

So back to school has come. Bri of course, loves it to bits. Serena is less impressed. She's not going, and I think that's the issue. She's not so happy Bri is gone all day, and right now we have to go back and forth to the school a bunch to get Bri. Bri will be walking herself soon, but not quite yet.

They both started their tap and jazz class on the weekend. Serena really loves it. And she looks super cute in her outfit. I hope she continues to love it, because it's for the whole year. If she sticks to it, there's a recital in June. I have no doubts Bri will stick with it.

Bri also starts Sparks (Girl Guides for small kids) tonight. I think she's really going to like it.

The house is going well, we just have to hope the rain takes a hike. If it does, we should be starting the second floor next week. That also depends on whether we get the floor joists this week.

2007-08-29T13:50:00.000-04:00

I bet my parents were real happy with my birthday usually being labour day weekend sometime. Got them off the hook for having to buy back to school stuff. Ho-ly crap. So far, the kid has needed one entire new outfit for the first day (guess what colour it is?), three pairs of shoes (one to wear, one for gym, and rainboots since I won't be there to yell "quit jumping in the bloody puddles already!"), three new long sleeved shirts, and a new backpack. I only avoided the new lunchbox in that the one she wanted was too small. I have wanted to buy one of these - http://lunchboxes.com/bento.html , but Bento is an art that I so don't have time for. Imagine me happily cutting carrot slices into little bunnies and putting faces on sandwiches...right. I did buy a stack of labels to attach to her though. Clumsy, Reads Too Much, Mouthy...heh. Labels that have her name on them so I don't accidently bring home some other kid's snow boots again. Although, I did good on that exchange, the ones I took were bigger. ;) Perhaps this is how should do things. Check out the kids who are bigger than Bri, then buy the exact same outerwear. Then, "accidently" take the bigger stuff so Bri can wear it next year. Then I only have to buy crap every other year. Hmm.

2007-08-25T11:02:00.000-04:00

Baby Katie is one. :( I can't beleive a whole year went by already. She had a very tiny party, just us. She got some little people and Bri made her a very cute card. We bought an ice cream cake, because Mike had wanted one for his birthday, but that was the last day we were on vacation. Katie likes chocolate ice cream cake.

Bri finished swimming, but didn't pass. She just needs to be able to swim farther by herself. I think one more repetition of the class should do it.

2007-08-23T17:53:00.000-04:00

Katie's birthday is tomorrow, wah. :( She is starting to stand without holding on to things, so she'll be walking soon. She's grown a couple of teeth too. Doesn't speak english yet though.

The older two started swimming, but Serena dropped out after two sessions. It was really weird, and she wouldn't give me a reason. She eventually came up with it was no fun because the instructor was a boy, but I don't think that was really it. We'll try that again in the new year. Bri has been trying very hard to pass level 1, we'll find out tomorrow if she made it. It said in the guide that it often takes 4 or 5 times to pass, so I have been trying to stress that. Speaking of the new guide, it's out and it's time to pick new things to do. It's not like London, there are very very few city run programs. Your choice of ballet or swimming. Everything else is ads for private studios. Makes it more expensive. :( I think we're going to sign Serena up for gymnastics, I think an hour to run around like a crazy fool will be good for her. I am hoping for Bri to audition for the children's theatre here, but we'll see. It's also not as well run as the one in London either. If she doesn't get a part, I think we'll go for Girl Guides. If all else fails, I get cookies. Mmm.

Other than the lousy programming, this place is pretty good. The pool is a 20 minute walk away, and on the way is shopping! There's a huge Bonnie Togs (children's clothing store) which may cause a divorce, we'll see. There's also a bookstore, but I have so far managed to avoid it. Tomorrow is BuskerFest, which looks neat.

Oh, and IMO, the addition goes good. Mike's got lots of load bearing walls up. There's a bit of a learning curve, and it doesn't help that Mike is Mr Anal ("It's off half a millimetre. I have to fix it."), but I think it's going well.

2007-08-16T08:42:00.000-04:00

Bri is getting all grown up. She lost that other tooth, leaving her face all gappy. She looks hilarious. While we were in Newf, she said she wanted to get her ears pierced. I told her to think about it until we got home. She thought about it and still wanted to do it, so we took her Monday. They did both at the same time, which made it easier. She didn't cry, but she thought about it. She doesn't like it when people call her a boy, so maybe this will stop that.

2007-08-12T16:37:00.000-04:00

Okay, so it's been awhile again, but I've been far too busy to get near a computer.

First, Bri finished her summer camp. She had a good time, but I don't think the play they chose was as good as last years'. There wasn't really a story line, mostly singing and the few lines were just set up for the songs. Bri's not so great at the musical part, it's like she can't sing and dance at the same time. This year she didn't get any practice time either, which was a bummer. But it was still amusing and cute. :)

Then we moved. The move went well, just with Bri's play being in the middle of it, it was kind of difficult. The kids went to grandpas for the weekend, thank god, because I don't really know where we'd have put them for two days while we unpacked.

Then we started the addition work immediately. Within two weeks we had the foundation finished. Pictures are on Facebook, and I sent an e-mail with the link. If I missed you, e-mail me and let me know. I'm not going to post a link here, since Facebook has my full name and all.

Then we went to Newfoundland for two weeks. We just got back. Here's the run down of that, it's really long. I don't know when I'll get to pics, I'm pooped, and the kids start swim lessons on Tuesday and I have to make a pile of phonecalls and the lumber also gets delivered on Tues. Wah. :(

July 29
Got up at 3am, picked up by transport people at 4:10. The van was full, which kind of sucked. 2 people were on a different flight to Newf and the other guy was going home to the Barbados. Bastard. Kids were good in the car, thank god. They didn't go back to sleep, but they were quiet.
When we got to the horror that is Pearson, things started sucking slightly. Mike for some reason didn't want to get a second luggage cart and instead wanted me to carry Katie, two pieces of luggage and a carseat. He didn't relent until I dropped the luggage and broke all the nails off my hand. It's not like I wasn't already pissy from lack of sleep or anything. Then the luggage checking chick was new or something. She took half an hour to check our luggage. I don't know WTF she was doing. Seriously. Then Serena turned and whacked her head off a shelf and got a huge purple bruise on her ear. :(

Then the plane was slightly delayed, which wasn't really that big of a deal. We got on, and the kids were really good. Bri and Serena screamed when the plane went up, which made for laughing. Katie was good, she only slept for the descent though, which sort of sucked. She didn't have a seat, so it was hard to keep her occupied on my lap. The flight was about 3 hours, but due to time difference, we got there about noon. Katie somehow managed to pee out her diaper on me while we were waiting for Fred to pick up the van.

We made a quick trip out to the ocean after dinner, just to go see it. Bri jumped in and we had a hard time keeping her out, even though it's like -15 degrees. The ocean is COLD up there.

July 30
Mike and I went to Dildo. Ha. I had to go take pics of the sign and get some postcards. We had lunch there and it was probably the best food we ate while there. It was just an assortment of seafoods, but whatever they breaded the cod in was amazing. You just can't get fish that tastes that good here in Ontario. Everything is farm raised and bleh.

July 31
We went up to Signal Hill. That's where the first transatlantic telegraph signal was sent from. The view is amazing, but it's windy as all get out.

Aug 1
The first Wed in August is a holiday in St John's called Regatta Day. EXCEPT when it's raining. Then Regatta Day is held off until it stops. Could be one day, could be a week. You get up in the morning and watch the news to find out if you have to go to work or not. Strangest thing ever, and it screwed up a bunch of my plans. The local lumber yard has a big Regatta Day sale that the MIL needed to go to, so she couldn't watch the kids in the morning. That was fine, we were going to go for dinner and check into our hotel that day. Then Regatta Day was held over, and I had no idea what was going to happen to my sea kayaking that I had booked for Thurs. Took me awhile to get ahold of them, but sea kayaking was a go, so we worked that out and changed the hotel dates around.

Since everything was goofy, we took the kids to the Fluvarium. Basically it's a place where they have observation windows under a river. Since it was raining, it was really cloudy. But we got there in time for feeding time, and they fed their frogs and such, which the kids liked.

Aug 2
Went sea kayaking. This was something I was really looking forward to. I booked up a 4 hour tour. There was us, two guides, a random guy who I think was friends with the owner (he was neither tourist or guide) and another older couple. The other couple were from Toronto and obviously had kayaked recently. The first two hours were great. Then I got sea sick. :( I actually hurfed a few times in the ocean there, and Mike had to paddle (we were in double kayaks) the last 15 minutes or so by himself. Still, it was worth it, the scenery was awesome and we never would have seen everything so close up otherwise. Next time, I'd book the 2 1/2 hour tour, since that's about the time I started barfing. heh. Then we went to a little pub for dinner as while I was hungry, I was still a little green and didn't want to get some expensive gourmet thing I wouldn't eat. I had mushroom soup and garden salad. Mike had crab cakes and a lobster. Then we checked into the hotel and made use of the hot tub in the pool area.

Aug 3
We went shopping at the touristy stores. I bought a zip up hoodie thing and got Katie a lobster. We were looking for a nice piece of art, but didn't find anything we really liked. We went for fancy dinner that night. Mike had a fish soup for a starter that was HUGE and a rack of lamb for dinner. I just had the salmon, and I swear it was like half a fish. Then we decided to go see Transformers. It was really good, actually.

Aug 4
For check out day at the hotel, we were supposed to go for a gourmet picnic. However, that was an hour away and because of the Regatta Day BS I had something else planned for the kids that afternoon that I thought was time sensitive, and we had to be there at 2. I'm sorry I missed that, it was one of three things we didn't get to do that I would have liked to. I also would have liked to do the bus tour (such a tourist) and the Bird Santuary (but we saw lots of birds with the whales). But hey. Instead we went back to Signal Hill and did the trail there. The first half was great, all downhill and with nice scenery. But on the way back you go through the city and then climb back up the hill. I thought I was going to have to crawl up. Seriously.

We went to the Botanical Gardens that afternoon with the kids. They were supposed to have a program running, but they didn't. We bought duck feed and the kids made the ducks fat. The dragonflies in Newfoundland are as big as Katie's head. I've never seen dragonflies so big.

Aug 5
Mike went golfing in the morning with Fred. Said the course was really nice, but he played crappily. He doesn't like his mom's clubs, but tough shit.

For dinner we went out to an internet bud's for a BBQ. She had a bunch of people over, but it was really nice. She makes a good slice of pork. The kids all took to each other quick (she has one 4 year old daughter). I was afraid it would be awkward, since I didn't know her all that well, but it was good. We actually delayed leaving for too long and Katie was super crank on the way home because she wanted her bottle.

Aug 6
We took the kids for a picnic at the beach. This time we brought bathing suits for the older two, even though the water wasn't getting any warmer.

Aug 7
We went whale watching that day. This was the best part of the trip for me and the kids. Mike thought it was kind of meh, and expensive. But we saw LOTS of whale parts. Tails and backs mostly. The kids got t-shirts and Bri picked a stuffed puffin and Serena got a puzzle. It was one of the nicest days of the trip, it's a lot colder in Newf than it is in Ontario. We thought our sweaters would be ok, but we could have used toques and gloves. Extra windy on a boat in the middle of the ocean. I took gravol before we left this time, heh.

Aug 8
We took the kids to the Science Center which was neat. I think it would have been better for slightly older kids, and unfortunately we came at the same time as a day camp, so it was ca-razy in there. But they let Serena hold a stick bug and Katie poked a giant snail (she immediately put her fingers in her mouth after, num).

Aug 9
We went to a fish n chips place for dinner, and while I thought it wouldn't be that good, but again, tasty ocean fish.

Aug 10
We finished off the trip with a stop at Cape Spear, which is the most Easternly point in North America. The views were again really great. This was Mike's birthday, so we had cupcakes. :)

Aug 11
Again, we flew out at a stupid time in the morning, 5:20am. We got up at three and made it to the airport in lots of time, IMO. The baggage chick was all "you'd better hurry up, there's a line in security and the flight is already boarding!" but then continued with her slow ass pace of bag checking. And there was no line in security and the flight wasn't boarding. *eye roll* The flight back was ok, Katie was really fussy for the first half hour, but then conked out for the rest of the flight. I watched Shrek Three on the seat TV. :) We got a van to ourselves on the way home, which was good. Everyone was cranky yesterday, but we made it.

The day after we got there, Serena decided to potty train, following in the tradition of her sister with potty training at the weirdest time ever. She has only had one accident and seems to be dry at night too (which would be cool, Bri only mastered that last summer).

Bri lost two teeth while we were there, and is about to lose another.

Katie started walking while holding your fingers and will probably start taking steps within the next month, if not sooner.

2007-07-07T13:23:00.000-04:00

Alrighty. Bri is out of school, she of course did well in SK. She finished with a third grade reading level (DRA 34, for Jenn). Her favourite books are The Magic Treehouse series, closely followed by Junie B Jones. If you have a chance to go read a Junie B book, go do it. They are hilarious. Bri's in summer camp right now, it's half done. It's a fish themed musical this year.

Serena is still crazy. No improvements on the potty training front. She's just being stubborn, and if she hasn't decided by the end of summer I am just going to stick her in undies and be done with it.

Katie is standing up and flinging everything off everything else. She has found the buttons on the TV, which are fascinating.

We move in a week, and that is not nearly as much fun. So much packing to do. :(

2007-06-13T23:05:00.000-04:00

I am such a bad blogger. It must be that extra kids thing, you know how you take more (pointless) pictures of your first and yammer about them more? Poor Katie. People probably think I made her up and then forgot about her.

Life is crazy around here, we are moving in a month, and trying deperately to sort out which half of our stuff to get rid of. The new house is only half the size, and I don't like storing things that get mildewy in basements at all. We had a yard sale a few weekends ago, which went well. Got rid of a lot of stuff and made a bit of money (promptly spent on Webkinz cards for Bri).

The kids finished their swimming last weekend. Serena graduated from her program, she will be moving from Sea Turtle to Salamander. Bri did not pass Level 1 and was really upset about it. :( We'll sign them up again after we move, I think it's important they swim at least better than me. Mike wants to put a pool in at the new place as soon as we can afford it, but that may be after they all move out at the rate we spend money.

Miss K is getting huge on me. She crawls like a pro now, and has started to pull up on things. Mostly just to her knees, but that's enough. Today she managed to snag a forgotten bowl of goldfish off the table to eat. See what I mean about third babies? This one forages for food.

2007-05-19T09:48:00.000-04:00

Amusing Lunch Discussion Between Kids:
Bri: When I grow up, I think I will be a farmer.
Serena: Then I will be your cow.
B: You can't be a cow! You're a person!
S: Ok. Then I will be a pirate.
B: You can't be a pirate! It's too dangerous! What if you get killed?
S: I won't get killed. I will have a sword. *brandishes imaginary sword*
B: I don't know. Sounds dangerous.

I have lots of updating, but I have letters to send first. In other news, Katie is learning to crawl and is starting to get the hang of it.

2007-03-31T12:22:00.000-04:00

So, since I'm procrastinating everything else, I will come blog. Bloggity blog blog. Snoop Bloggy Blog.

Kids are the usual, nothing new with them. Bri has a couple loose teeth, but they aren't going anywhere yet. Katie is trying to crawl, and I think she's scootching herself forward. She has three teeth now, two on the bottom and one on top. The second top one is on it's way as well.

I'm really behind in pictures, I have two rolls to scan. I will do a marathon scan session one of these days.

Speaking of behind, I haven't done a Katie book update in awhile. So here's one (she was 7 months old on the 24th).
SHOULD be able to:
*sit without support - for how long? I can't leave her there, but she can sit for short periods of time before she falls over.
*feed self a cracker - ooh, messy.
*razz - one of her favorite noises.

PROBABLY be able to:
*bear some weight on legs - yes, she likes to stand.
*object if you try to take a toy away - yup.
*work to get a toy out of reach - yup.
*pass a toy from one hand to the other - I think so.
*look for a dropped object - yup.
*rake a raisin and pick it up in fist - She's more of a pincher, but she likes cat hair.
*turn in the direction of a voice - yes I often have to yell at her to get her attention when feeding her.
*babble - yup. She literally says "blah blah blah"

MAY EVEN be able to:
*pick up tiny object with thumb and forefinger - yup.

There's lots of things she's not doing, mostly standing and sitting and stuff like that. If she's anything like the other two (which so far is not), she'll be late walking and talking.

2007-03-13T10:40:00.000-04:00

My slowness knows no bounds. Plus, Blogger made me switch over to some "new" Blogger which is bound to make things go bad. Everytime I am supposed to upgrade something on the computer the new one sucks and doesn't work near as good as the old one. I don't know why they do this to me.

Looking at the bottom of the page, you can see Bri turned 6. She had a nice little party with two friends from school. She also grew two permanent molars in the back of her mouth. It's March Break right now, so we can just sit around and do nothing. Yay.

Nothing new for Serena. She's still being a pain. Although I am supposed to call her willful. Yes....willful.

Katie is getting huge. She has two teeth now on the bottom. She eats cereal for lunch and veggies for dinner. The veggies she's not too sure on, but she'll eat them. She can roll both ways now.

Bri finished her ballet. I signed them both up for swimming, it starts the end of April. I would have signed Katie up too, but they didn't have baby swimming consecutive with the other kids'. I signed up for bellydancing, so that ought to be amusing.

2007-02-19T17:05:00.000-05:00

Also, Katie sprouted a tooth. It makes her grumpy. I'm not sure what Serena's excuse is.

2007-02-18T12:57:00.000-05:00

Fun times for The Katie this weekend. On Thursday, she rolled over from her back to front. Now she's a rollin' machine. I'm considering replacing the carpet in the livingroom, I'll need to price that out. Yesterday, she got to eat rice cereal for the first time, thought it was tasty. I'm about to go make her some more.

2007-02-15T17:20:00.000-05:00

Here's some excerpts from Bri's very awesome report card.
"Brianna is an exceptional reader. She reads advanced text (DRA 30 )...she often provides running commentary....would benefit from throwing and catching games to improve hand-eye coordination...She can be very dramatic...an enthusiatic performer of O Canada..."
It's basically a page expounding on the wonder that is my child. :) There's a few sections that made me laugh, including that bit about hand eye coordination. School is all good for her at this point. I don't think I'll be having a parent teacher interview, but you never know. With her teacher they are sort of impromptu - like hey you, Brianna's mom, come here. Heh.

2007-02-11T14:21:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my new series, tentively titled Why I am an Awesome Parent and You're Not. This is just a working title, you know, like Snakes on a Plane.

Today's lesson is There are things your child will suck at. I'm not sure what hippy love fest came up with that "you can do whatever you put your mind to!" nonsense, but rest assured if your pwecious gets cut from the baseball team there's probably a reason, and no, 'creative' spelling doesn't count on the test. Sometimes, if you try hard enough you can become mediocre, but there's just going to be certain things that require some inborn talent that the kid doesn't have. It's not going to matter what coaches I pay for, nor how much time she spends, Bri isn't going to be any sort of an athelete. The kid has nearly broken her ankle twirling in the living room for god's sake. I am hoping that she comes to realize this herself, and I don't have to personally crush her dreams of dancing in the National Ballet. You may think me cruel for saying out loud let alone pronoucing it to the world, but I don't see the point of letting her drag an impossible dream around for years when she could use that energy to drag around a possibe dream. Write a book? Sure! Play professional golf? Notsomuch. That's not to say you can't keep doing something you suck at if you enjoy it. If it's fun, and you're not bankrupting yourself doing it, go nuts. I am terrible at strategy board games, yet I keep playing them every week. I have yet to win, but I play. I don't go entering any tournements or anything. This lesson has a second part, which is When you realize your child sucks at something, try not to snicker too loudly or other parents will stare at you. At least the ones who haven't learned lesson 1 anyways.

2007-02-07T21:29:00.000-05:00

Here's the things I forgot.

Bri busted her hand but good playing Wii. I thought I was going to have to take her to the hospital and be embarrassed. She was playing baseball and flung herself into a door on the entertainment unit. She cut her pinky and her ring finger swelled up huge and turned purple. She moved all her fingers though, so we decided nothing was broken and gave her ice. The next day she was fine (other than all her fingers being purple) - she didn't even complain about it.

Then we entered the twilight zone. Wii baseball shows you the name of the player coming up to bat. Because most of these players were created here and are people she knows, Serena can often name them. A few of them are from other people's Wiis though, and not people Serena has ever met or even hears referred to. One of them comes up to bat and Serena says "Nick!" which was truely bizarre. The only thing I can think of is that Bri has read the name enough that Serena just remembers what he looks like.

Later, when the older weasels were in bed, Mike was sitting with Katie (I was probably playing Zelda). She's happily playing and then she looks up and clear as day says "Daddy!" She's not said it again, and almost certainly had no idea what she was saying, but again, bizarre.

The last thing is Bri told me today when she grows up and becomes a phone repairer (like dad) I can watch her kids since mine will be all grown up and I'll have nothing better to do. Dang.

2007-02-06T22:57:00.000-05:00

Brr frickity Brr. It's far too cold here, I may have to move. Or start homeschooling so I never have to leave the house again. Brr.

On an administrative note, the pics from 2004 got axed because I ran out of room. But some year, I'll scan in the Christmas pics and develop a roll of film from this year and that will make up for it.

Bri ate her tooth on the weekend, she's actually rather upset about it. I warned her for days that she was going to end up eating it if she didn't let me pull it or pull it out herself. She was very worried the Tooth Fairy wouldn't come because she didn't have the tooth, but she wrote a note and the TF left her glow in the dark dinosaurs, which while not as cool as turtles, will do.

Serena got Bri's fever, but skipped the rash. She also kept the fever around for a few days, just to be different.

Katie's got her first cold too, she's got this nasty cough that makes it sound like she's choking. I haven't been getting all that much sleep since I'm trying to make sure she's not drowning in her own juices. :/

2007-01-25T23:07:00.000-05:00

Survey says - rash is probably viral and will go away eventually. In the meantime, she is to stay home. Doc also said it could be a reaction to the penicillan she was on for her ear infection, but those don't usually come with a fever.

2007-01-24T22:38:00.000-05:00

Did I mention we have a Wii? No time for blogging, must operate on poor hapless people. Or bowl.

Bri got herself a handy dandy ear infection. Just as she was finishing the meds for that, she hit a fever yesterday that totally wiped her out. I kept her home from school today, just to make sure it was out of her system and this evening (of course, after we went to the doctor's for Katie) she popped a rash. I'll keep her home tomorrow again, but I don't think it's anything serious. She's in ballet again and says it is great fun. Also, she brought me home some school work. It was a table of large and small things. Under large we have elephant and dinosaur. Under small we have rat and....bacteria. My kid is weird. She was weighed at the ear infection appt, she's 44lbs and 45" tall now.

Serena is Serena. She's getting eviler by the day, what's new. We weighed her randomly at the doctor's today and she is 31 lbs with her coat and boots on. But she's still a stick. Her arms are really thin especially.

Katie had her four month appt a month late, since she was 4 months Christmas Eve. She's a pudge, but I always guess the kids are fatter than they are. She was 15 lbs, and I didn't catch her length, I'll measure her myself tomorrow. She got a stab in each leg, tag teamed by the doctor and the medical student. She stopped crying really quickly though. She is trying to roll over from her back, but no luck yet. She reaches for everything in sight, and she's eaten a tiiiny amount of potato. She's not all that interested in solid food yet, so I'm planning to hold off until 6 months, which is the new standard.

2007-01-14T21:24:00.000-05:00

Wii! We finally got our paws on a Wii last week and it hasn't been off during daylight hours for longer than it takes to eat. We don't have a lot of games for it yet, but what we have is good enough. Bri likes to box and Serena likes bowling. Mike and I fight over who gets to play Zelda.

2007-01-12T22:59:00.000-05:00

Bri's been back to school for the week, which has been ok. Katie's been fine with not eating immediately after getting up, and Serena hasn't complained too much about the cold - possibly since spring now comes in January for some reason.

2007-01-05T09:09:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year and such.

Christmas was insane here, it sort of snuck up real fast and attacked. I think we're going to have to limit the amount of kids we have to the amount of space under the tree. And it was creeping out this year. It's partly my fault, I get them too much. But they enjoyed all their presents, even Katie. She's just starting to hold things, so getting a bunch of new things to stuff in her mouth was exciting for her.

Christmas is all packed up for this year, Serena cried when we took the tree down. She really loved the lights and asked for them to be turned on every morning.

We didn't so anything for New Years because we never do. We watched the third Lord of the Rings movie (we watched the first two the two nights before) and went to bed. Whoo. Rock on.

Bri goes back to school on Monday, which kind of sucks. I've been quite happy not rushing in the morning and wearing my PJs until noon. And poor Katie is going to have to go back to eating whenever I can fit her in. It's a good thing she's a calm kid.

2006-12-30T21:22:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas! I just put up a ton of new pics. I'll come back and write about Christmas later. Right now I want to play with my brother's Nintendo DS he left here the other day.

2006-12-06T20:04:00.000-05:00

There's nothing quite so horrifying as a two year old asking you, "want some poo?" Then nothing quite so relieving when she hands you a stuffed yellow bear.

Kids hit the dentist on Monday. There was a lot of "oh yeah, we'll see about this two year old" from the dentists, but they sorely underestimate the power of the older sibling. Serena hopped right up there and opened her mouth huge and thought the dentist was the best thing ever. Bri has a spot on one of her molars that is like a pre-cavity, so they are going to scrape it and put a sealer on it the end of December.

2006-11-27T15:51:00.000-05:00

You were almost lucky. I was just starting to upload pics and it told me I exceeded my data quota. Dang it. Now I need to start deleting stuff again, so some things may be gone. I will start by weeding out photos in 04 and 05, but if that doesn't cut it, 04 might just have to go. EDIT - Lucky you are. It didn't take me very long, so there's about 5 new pics in there. Only up to about Katie's second week of life, but it's something.

While I'm in here, I'll do the other updating. Bri finished her skating class on the weekend. She skates stiff legged, but fairly rapidly. She is to move up to level 2 next time. But she wants to do ballet again in the middle. I had a quick parent teacher interview with her teacher, and Bri is doing just fine. She does enrichment activities every day for one week every month. The enrichment has to do with taking more in depth looks at certain books, and some writing. Bri's writing is getting much better, but she still hates to sound stuff out.

We all went to the Lighting of the Lights (a park where they light up all the trees) and the Santa Claus Parade this weekend. The lights kind of sucked, I think we'll skip that next year. But the parade was a big hit for the kids. Plus, it's path is just up the street.

Katie is huge. In fact, I sent her to the doctor this weekend because she's been extra fussy and I thought it might be an ear infection (it's not) and the doctor said perhaps she's eating too much. Heh. She is the fatest baby we've had yet. Her hair is still there and still brunette. Her eyes are a hazely colour. Ok, here's her book thingy.

SHOULD be able to:
*on stomach, lift head 45 degrees - I have no idea. I am a bad mommy and don't do tummy time with Katie. The carpet is icky, the kids are always running around, and she has excellent head control while sitting, so whatever.
*follow an obect in an arc past the midline - I think so.

PROBABLY be able to:
*laugh out loud - yes, but it's like pulling teeth. Except for Erica. Kid thinks she looks funny.
*on stomach, lift head 90 degrees - ?
*bring both hands together - and stuffs a blanket in her mouth.
*smile spontaneously - yes.
*follow an object from one side of her face to the other - I have no idea.

POSSIBLY be able to:
*hold head steady when upright - yup. She loves to sit.
*on stomach raise chest - I don't know, but probably not.

May EVEN be able to:
*bear some weight on legs - yup.
*reach for an object - mmm blankets.
*keep head level with body when pulled to sitting - I'm pretty sure.
*turn in the direction of a voice - yup.
*say some vowel-consonant combo - rarely. Once she said Mama. It was hilarious.

Things she can't do involve rolling over and holding toys. She only wants to hold her blankets.

2006-11-23T16:12:00.000-05:00

The baby is three months old tomorrow, and if you're lucky I'll do that there book update and maybe scan some pictures in too.

In honour of her birthday, we bought her a new baby bathtub. Ok, we just hated the old bathtub. It has a hinge in the middle and leaks all over the bathroom floor all the time. It's a cute new tub, it has a hammock for future newborns and it looks to be more comfortable than the old one.

Which brings me to my biggest piece of advice for any first time moms that might read my ramblings. Buy good shit the first time if you think there will ever be a chance of you having more kids. And a chance is pretty much what you get if you don't have your husband neutered immediately. Now, with Bri we didn't really have the option to buy expensive things, but it really does suck to be replacing stuff on baby #3. Not only are we spending more money, but we had to deal with using the crappy item for the first two kids. I remember we just bathed Bri with us when she was a baby. I can't remember what we did with Serena, maybe we just didn't bathe that one. Hosed her off in the backyard once a week. But so far Katie's gotten a new bouncy chair, bathtub and highchair (although the highchair is because my kitchen is so damn small), and it looks like we're going to have to buy a new stroller soon too.

Guess we'll have to have more kids to cover the expense. Heh.

2006-10-26T16:19:00.000-04:00

Katie is two months old! I can't beleive how fast the time has gone. She had her appointment yesterday, she's 10 pounds, 12 ounces and still appears to be 22" long. But that may be just the difference in the way the midwife measured her and the doctor. Babies are slippery. The shots made her unhappy.

Bri's doing well in school, she has enrichment for a half hour twice a week. They have her read something, then she is to write something about what she read in a journal. I can really see a difference in the way she writes her letters, although she still doesn't like to sound words out on her own. She really hates making mistakes. She's also in skating again, back with the purple penguins. She skates ok, she's very stiff legged and falls down to stop. Takes after me. We plan to take Serena a time or two this winter.

Here's Katie's book update:
SHOULD be able to:
*smile responsively - yup. Adorable.
*follow an object in an arc above head - seems like.
*respond to a bell in some way - while we know she's not deaf, she has developed selective hearing. Probably because if she didn't she'd never sleep with all the screaming going on in here.
*vocalize in ways other than crying - yup. Aoo.

PROBABLY be able to:
*lift head 45 degrees when on stomach - seems like.
*follow object past the midline - I dunno.

MAY EVEN be able to:
*hold head steady when upright - pretty much.

May POSSIBLY be able to:
*smile spontaneously - I think so. She smiles when she sees us, but it may be we're already smiling and she's just responding.

Things she's not advanced in involve rolling over, and making more happy noises.

2006-10-23T20:26:00.000-04:00

I have (well, had, I threw them out yesterday) holey socks. They are the last socks in the drawer, emergency socks. I was wearing them the other day, and Bri alerted me to the fact I have holey socks. Then she asked why I had holey socks. I said because her dad won't let me buy any new socks. Which led to a discussion with Mike as to why it's perfectly reasonable to buy $10 socks and not the value pack at Zellers. During this, Bri leans in close and says she has to tell me something, something Mike can't hear. She whispers to me:

When you learn how to drive, you can go buy your own socks.

Died.

2006-10-18T15:00:00.000-04:00

Bri's tooth came out Thanksgiving Monday. It was hanging by a tiny bit, so she said I could pull it out. The tooth fairy brought her a bag of plastic turtles, which made her very happy.

Serena is still evil. Nothing new to report.

Katie had a six week check up some time ago, and she was 9 lbs 10 oz and 22" long. Up three pounds and three inches since birth. She's very cute, and has starting smiling and making baby noises. Sometime after halloween I'll get the new(er) pics scanned in and posted. I have to make Bri's costume still.

2006-10-03T15:36:00.000-04:00

You know how the third kid gets totally ignored? Yeah, it's true. She's lucky we remember to feed her. She's almost 6 weeks old and I haven't bothered to go through What to Expect and see if she's developing normally. I mean, what can it say? She should be: sitting like a lump, crying, and pooping. Yup, got that covered.

In other news, Bri's tooth is still hanging in there. I think it might be awhile, it's still pretty tight.

Ok, really, here's the book thing for Katie.
SHOULD be able to:
*lift head briefly when on stomach on a flat surface - yup. She's got pretty good neck control already.
*focus on a face - yup.

PROBABLY be able to:
*respond to a bell in some way - uh...I dunno. There's so much noise in here anyways, like she'd here a bell.
*follow an object in an arch above her little head - *shrug*

POSSIBLY be able to:
*on stomach lift head 45 degrees - maybe. She can now.
*vocalize in ways other than crying - just recently.
*follow an object past the midline - I don't know.
*smile on purpose - yup, but she was technically older than a month.

May even be able to:
*on stomach lift head 90 degrees - maybe.
*hold head steady when upright - she's awfully close.

Things she can't do involve smiling randomly, laughing and holding her hands together and such.

2006-09-23T13:56:00.000-04:00

The original weasel is growing up. I wonder if I can still call her a weasel when she's 38? Probably. Anyhoo. Bri now has a loose tooth. It's one of the bottom front ones, and she's excited about it. She doesn't want anyone to yank it out though, she wants it to fall out on it's own.

2006-09-21T13:33:00.000-04:00

The other night, Bri was reading a book about volcanos. It had a section on tsunamis. Bri tends to rush over unfamiliar words and pretend they are words she already knows. In this case, she chose salami. Conversation as follows:
Mike: Su-na-mi.
Bri: Su-la-mi. *fit of giggles*
Mike: Salami is food. A Tsunami is a natural disaster than can kill people.
Bri: Bad salami kills people.
Serena: People eat tsunami.

Last night, we were putting the kids to bed, and we always bring Katie up too, because they want to kiss her goodnight. Right as Serena went to kiss Katie, she threw up on Serena's hand. The look of horror on Serena's face was priceless.

2006-09-10T09:25:00.000-04:00

Lots of growing up going on around here. Serena moved out of the highchair and into a booster seat of her own. Bri had a shower all by herself. Katie is growing bigger every moment. Her head is starting to get fat. :)

2006-09-07T10:38:00.000-04:00

Katie is two weeks old today. A midwife came out to check her out and she's 7lbs 6oz now. Chunking up quick. I can't beleive it's been two weeks already. She's really changed. I hope to get the pictures up in the next week or so, but since we also bought a new laptop I have to install the scanner and stuff still.

Bri started school on Tuesday, already her attitude is better. She is in the morning class, and unfortunately only a few kids from her class last year also switched. The good news is that the girl just down the street that Bri played with in the summer a few times is in her class, so maybe they will become better friends over the year.

Nothing new for Serena, she's as evil as ever. She's not fond of being woken up in the morning and is extra grumpy, so that's fun.

Oh - I have put a new ticker down at the bottom, so you can see Katie there. :)

2006-09-02T11:32:00.000-04:00

So what's new...what's new...Katie! Baby #3 has landed. The quick version is Katherine Adara was born August 24, 2:38am 6lbs 10oz and 19" long. I'll put the long version at the end of this post, that way if you're easily queasy you can skip it. I can't beleive she's been here a week already, and yet it does seem like she's always been here. She's a very easy baby, sleeps a lot and poops a lot. Teri was here yesterday to weigh her, she was 7lbs 2oz already. Bri and Serena think she's great. They both like to hold her, but not for too long. She has brown hair and brown eyes, which is shocking since we kind of thought we only produced clones. Pictures soon, let's say a week.

In other news, Bri goes back to school on Tuesday and Serena got her first haircut a few weeks ago. Just a light trim to even things out a little.

Katie's Birth Story
On my due date, Aug 23, I had an appointment in the morning with my midwife. She’d already made me go to a bunch of ultrasounds to check on the baby’s growth and size. The results of my latest made her all wiggy for reasons we haven’t really gotten an answer to. The ultrasound from two days before had listed the baby’s size as just under 6 pounds, and all I could get out of Teri is that it “could maybe be indicative of a problem” and we wouldn’t know until she was born. I’m not sure when the standard baby size became 8 pounds, I missed that memo. She wanted me to consult with an OB the next day and recommended hospital birth instead of home. She messed with my cervix a bit (they call it a stretch and sweep) to see if that would kick things off since my preference was definitely natural labour over any interventions. I’m not sure if that did it, or if it was just because I had already dilated to 2cm.

I started having what were real contractions shortly after, but they were very very infrequent (maybe once an hour) and not strong at all. Over the day they got a little stronger and a little closer together, but I wasn’t really convinced I was in labour. I wasn’t really even convinced I was in early labour. I went and had a bath at 10pm, and was still able to read my book and shave my legs and stuff so I was thinking maybe I’d go to bed. The contractions were fairly strong, but short. I decided to time them for a bit and was kind of surprised when they were 2-3 minutes apart. I would have thought them 5 minutes or more. We decided to page Teri and have her come check me since she wanted the birth to be in the hospital. I didn’t want to be in the car in transition again. It was a good thing we called her, otherwise I probably would have ended up having the baby somewhere I didn’t want to – either my room or in the car would be my bet. She came to check me and I was at 4cm at midnight. We decided to wait another hour to make sure this was it, and an hour later I was at least 5cm and they were starting to get pretty strong. That was 1am on the 24th. We aren’t exactly sure what time we got to the hospital, but I think it was about 1:15. The hallway leading to labour and delivery is 12 miles long at least. I have no idea how I ever made it there last time, Mike says he thinks he and Erica pulled me down it. Erica made it in from out of town and met us in the hallway, which was good. We (her and I) had been afraid she wouldn’t be able to come this time either due to childcare issues or just the fact she’s a little out of town and I am quick.

I’m not sure how long I laboured before pushing in the hospital, but I think it was at least half an hour. So, we’ll say 1:45am. I had a few pushes before my water broke, so it’s a good thing I didn’t wait around at home for my water to break like it did with Serena. Because it took so long for my water to break it wasn’t quite as intense as Serena’s birth. In some ways that was good, but in others it made it seem longer even though it wasn’t. When my water broke it gushed all over, it’s a good thing no one was standing there. I felt like I was pushing forever before she started coming. It really wasn’t all that long, and since not every contraction was a pushing contraction it was probably only ¼ of the pushes it took to have Serena. But since everyone kept telling me how small the baby was going to be, I sort of expected her to come out a little faster. I kept waiting to feel her head, and it seemed like it was never coming. However, once it did it was quick after that. Only one or two contractions for her head and maybe one for her body. She had the cord wrapped around her neck once, but Teri couldn’t get in there easily to remove it so she just left it until the whole baby was out. When they passed her to me, the first thing I said was that she didn’t look all that small to me. The second midwife (Celeste) agreed. I think Celeste saved me a bunch of grief by telling Teri several times to wait one more contraction before calling the pediatric team. That way she was born and obviously not teeny either just before or after they arrived. So, Katherine Adara was born at 2:38am on August 24th weighing 6lbs 10oz. No hemmorhage or tearing for me this time either. I’d say 3 ½ hours of labour, but not as intense as Serena’s 2 ½.

The only downers about the hospital birth was that Teri was in and out of the room constantly, which was distracting. All the birthing suites were full, so we were jammed into a closet of a room. It only had one chair, Celeste sat on the floor for awhile before she was needed. Because the room was so small, the three hour wait after was terrible too. Mike had been up almost 24 hours and sitting doing nothing only made him more tired. There wasn’t even a phone in the room, so we couldn’t call anyone. My mom called at 4am to see what was going on. But there were good things too, like not having to put the placenta in my fridge after. As well, I paid more attention to my contractions so as to avoid the drive at a bad time – if I was staying home I think I would have honestly been caught by surprise at the pushing stage and ended up stuck in a room I hadn’t planned on being in.

Anyhow, I am long winded. She’s two days old now (only two days?) and she hasn’t lost any weight, which is great. She seems to have her days and nights mixed up, which is not so good. The kids love her to bits, especially when she’s awake. I feel totally fine, yay! We went grocery shopping today even. My back has been bad because I think I overused the muscles tensing up, but I am hoping to get in to see my massage therapist. I’m also a bit tired, but that’s because Katie has been only sleeping an hour at a time at night, but I’ve been sleeping late in the morning. I’ll need to sort this out before Mike goes back to work.

2006-08-17T15:04:00.000-04:00

No baby yet, don't be wetting your pants with excitement over a new post or anything.

I had an appointment today, everything seems to be going along fine. I've only gained 21 pounds, so that's cool. I got my ultrasound results back from last week and the weight estimate is about 6 pounds right now (5 1/2 last week - average gain at this point is 1/2 pound a week). This is surprising to me, because I rather thought this baby would be bigger than Serena. Ultrasounds can be off by as much as a pound either way, but seeing as I am measuring small still externally as well, I don't see it being off too much on the heavier side. In case you've forgotten, this baby is on track to be about a pound less than Serena was. Serena was 7lbs 11oz on her due date.

My guess for baby birthing is sometime during next weekend. The 25-27, somewhere in there. But who the heck knows, I could go into labour in the next 20 minutes.

Oh, and more children humour. Bri asked Serena what her favorite animal is. Serena answered "mommy!" I am not sure if this is a compliment or what.

2006-08-02T12:45:00.000-04:00

Haven't posted in awhile. Wish I could say it was because we're on a reno blitz or that the new baby is impending..but it's far geekier than that. Mike and I started playing an RPG and it's all we can do not to put the kids to bed at 5pm.

Quick rundown on everyone here-
Mike: making him finish small projects we have the stuff on hand for. Last week, chalk shelf for playroom. This week - hopefully bedroom closet shelves and maybe even window trim in the bathroom.
Me: Fine. It's hot, but I'm not feeling any extra hot, except I have far fewer clothes to choose from, and only 2 tank tops.
Bri: Mouthy as per usual. Finished her summer camp, she loved it. The play was really cute, no one forgot their lines and Bri nearly flung a little girl off the stage during the hoedown. We have video, and attempted to take some pics but haven't developed the roll yet.
Serena: Evil. Steals things from Bri and throws them behind the couch because she can. Fell off playground equipment last week and now will climb halfway and begs to be rescued.
#3: Impending. I have most of the stuff I need kicking around for having the kid, but I'm still missing a few things to pick up this weekend. Still measuring small, so I have another ultrasound next week. Pretty sure it'll be a few weeks yet before the kid comes (I am full term now, for all intents and purposes).

2006-07-13T19:22:00.000-04:00

Bri quote of the day: "I only like grown up boys." Oh, crap.

2006-07-11T14:42:00.000-04:00

Serena is trendy. Today at the library she picked up her very own set of Harajuku Girls. Except hers are Korean and not as funkily dressed. And I don't think she instructed them not to talk and called them Love, Angel, Music or Baby. Regardless, a foursome of Korean teenagers glommed on to Serena and followed her around for an hour. They were very interested in the fish she made, and showed her things in their purses. I got to read a book. Maybe she should have named them and brought them home.

2006-07-01T15:42:00.000-04:00

Back to boring things hardly anyone cares about for a moment.

#3's ultrasound came back perfect, it appears I have a yoga baby in there. All squished into Downward Facing Fetus. Better than a baby that does pilates I suppose.

Brianna had her last day of school on Wednesday. She is going to be in the morning class next year and she is not particularly happy about that. "But mom, I like to sleep in the morning!" No denying she's my kid all right. Her report card says she did very well in school this year and there has been improvement in her social and listening skills.

And so as not to forget the middle child, Serena's sentances are starting to fill in. We're moving from baby talk to regular talk, and she's started to pick up Bri's attitude already. Rah.

2006-06-30T14:09:00.001-04:00

I have a bunch of updating to do, but I'm a little on the busy side this week. So for now, you get Brianna and Serena's stand up comedy routine.

Serena: Knock, knock. Who's there?
Brianna: Orange. Say Orange. Orange who?
Serena: Purple!
Brianna and Serena: *fits of laughter*

2006-06-23T10:41:00.000-04:00

The older weasels started sharing a room two nights ago. Serena has her own bed, but prefers to sleep with Bri, which is what I expected to happen.

Night one went about as well as could be expected, they stayed up really late. There was a lot less fighting than anticipated however. Bri conked out at about 11, and Serena held in until 12. Bri taught Serena how to turn the lamp on and off, so mostly Serena just flicks it on and off all night.

Night two was better, Bri was out at 10 and Serena 11. Serena even turned out the light last night. My goal is to get them both sleeping by 9 most nights.

2006-06-22T17:38:00.000-04:00

Again with the rain! God reads my blog and mocks me. YEAH? WELL, MOCK YOU TOO GOD! MOCK MOCK MOCK! I SHALL WORSHIP THIS HANDY GOLDEN CALF! MOO!

2006-06-21T21:22:00.000-04:00

A slight interlude.

Hi there. You're friendly neighbourhood Site Admin checking in. Just to let everyone know - I've added an RSS feed of this site now. So if you use something like Google Reader or any other RSS aggregator, you can just add in the site to it. If you use Google Reader, all you need to do is click on the "Add to Google" button over on the left hand side.

2006-06-21T13:16:00.000-04:00

I hate rain. If water would just stay on the ground and can it with the evaporation BS, we wouldn't have this problem.

2006-06-17T15:28:00.000-04:00

When I make Kraft Dinner, which is a Canadian staple food, I always give the little packet of "powdered seasoning/nuclear cheese" a smart little snap of the wrist to move the cheese powder towards the bottom of the packet. Therefore, when I open it, it won't spurt out and will pour nicely. Last time I did this, the packet tore in half covering me and half the kitchen in nuclear orange cheese powder. I could have been Jessica Simpsons' body double. Well, except for the ginormous growth coming from my midsection.

2006-06-14T22:13:00.000-04:00

News on the oft neglected third child -

I've been measuring small for dates recently (about a month off), so the midwives are sending me off for an ultrasound. I'll be going for that June 26, but probably won't hear anything about the results until my appointment on the 29th. Unless there's something emergency like going on in there, but I really really doubt that.

There's several reasons why I could be measuring small, ranging from strange baby positioning to too little amniotic fluid. IUGR is another possibility (it was why I measured small with Bri) - but very unlikely as I have no signs of preeclampsia and it would be very odd for me to get it one pregnancy, skip it the next and then get it again. Besides, my blood pressure has been low, if anything.

I suspect strange baby positioning, but we'll find out in a few weeks.

2006-06-12T12:24:00.000-04:00

We went to the zoo this weekend. Nothing unusual there, animals, whining about how it's boring and a miscommunication wherein the two year old thought we were purchasing her a pony and not simply a pony ride. Things shaped up well, all was fin and we came home with a tube of plastic animals, a tiger puppet and a splinter.

The splinter was mentioned a few hours later and was reported to be from a piece of swamp grass Bri picked. We should sue. You may agree after the recounting of the pain and suffering my poor poor little five year old suffered upon removal of the teeny little spike embedded in her finger. This splinter was maybe 3mm long. It was a tiny thing really. Last time Mike got a splinter it was more like having an entire piece of trim embedded in his palm. You call that a splinter? This is a splinter. Anyhow. I wonder if perhaps the piece of swamp grass was infested with ergot or some other natural mold that makes you go into hallucinogenic delusions. I was in another room trying to keep Serena from interfering, but if I hadn't known better I would have thought they were attempting to drive demons from her in there. Several instances of "get away from me!" "It huuuuurts" "ow!ow!ow!" *scream* After about 15 minutes of this, I went in there to mention if it wasn't coming out, to stick a piece of duct tape on there because sometimes that will draw them out. Turns out, the screaming was from the mere extension of her finger. No one had actually managed to touch the splinter yet.

I distracted her with a tale of my childhood on how I once jammed a pencil lead in my arm and my mom decided to take me to the hospital where they proceeded to dig around in there with a razor blade with no freezing for half an hour and she didn't want that to happen to her did she? She thought not, and with a few more threats of sitting on her, held still long enough for Mike to yank the splinter out. It took maybe a second.

2006-06-09T14:10:00.000-04:00

This was a post I made on a forum recently when the question was asked - "What do stay at home moms DO all day if you aren't going out all the time?"

Let's see...get the kids breakfast and plunk my a$$ down at the computer for a bit to wake up. Feed and water my idiot dog and take him outside thirty times, even though he's just going to pee on the floor anyways. Call my friend, chat while cleaning kitchen. Water dog, take out ten times, while making lunch for kids. Take Bri to school. Yell at dog for peeing during the half hour I was out of the house even though I just took him out before we left. Put Serena down for her nap, make my lunch put in laundry, possibly fold laundry, eat lunch. Sew for about an hour. Take dog out, get laundry, get kid up from nap. Go pick up Bri from school. Get kids a snack, put on Magic School Bus. Hear complaints about how this wasn't the snack they wanted, Serena is not sharing, Serena is stuffing the goldfish in her pants. Water and feed dog, take out fifteen times. Unload dishwasher, start dinner. Husband comes home complains kitchen is a mess throw knife at him. Kids and dog jump all over husband while making unholy racket. Dog pees on floor, everyone yells at dog. Serve dinner, get drinks for kids, lift one kid over the baby gate so she can go pee, get more meat for kid, get dessert for kids, eat cold dinner. Kids run around living room like freakazoids, beg to play gamecube. Play game cube, tell kid to quit being a sore loser, turn off gamecube because said kid is having a temper tantrum because she lost, even though she won the preceeding three games, ignore screaming crying hysterical fit that always escalates to "you never let me do anything, waah!" and try not to crack up. Haul kids upstairs to bathtub. Argue over who wants bubbles, who doesn't want bubbles, who wants rubber ducks and who wants which cup. Resist urge to get the dog and drown them all. And maybe the husband too, who is in some other room "renovating" very very slowly. Every day. Since November. Attempt to wash hair amidst screaming about burning eye pain since "tear free" = "full of acid" in child speak. Tell them to get out of tub. Listen to screaming about not wanting to get out of tub. Unplug tub, pull wrinkly two year old off of the bottom. Brush hair, more screaming, pulling it all out by the roots, obviously. Wrestle two year old to the floor to brush teeth. Chase naked toddler down the hallway. Somehow manage to diaper the butt and not the head and ignore requests to wear barettes to bed. Read toddler three books, hug and kiss four times, hope for no screaming. Read five year old a book, they are getting awfully long these days. Water and take dog out fourteen times, not that it mattered, because he peed all over while you were upstairs bathing children.

Occasionally, throw in an hour or two of chasing toddler at park. Fearless toddler who does not understand that stepping directly off of 6 foot high playground equipment is not a good idea. Fearless toddler who thinks she is bigger than she is and can climb whatever is handy.

The thought of wrangling children around the mall for a few hours by myself makes me contemplate drowning myself in the bathtub.

It has been suggested that I attempt to humourously blog more often. And being nearly 30 weeks pregnant, why not try now? It's not like I'm busy or anything. Not at all. I'll squeeze in blogging between the dog peeing on the floor and Magic School Bus.

2006-05-17T19:20:00.000-04:00

Serena is two! And for her birthday, Brianna gave her the chickenpox. She had a slow start to them, but now she's pretty covered.

Her party was good, she was very happy with her cake. All week she'd been asking about her birthday cake. She got a reasonable amount of presents for once, which was nice.

SHOULD be able to:
*take off an article of clothing - the only think she takes off is socks. But she has taken pants off a couple times.
*feed a doll - all the time.
*build a tower of 4 cubes - yup.
*identify two pictures by pointing - yup.

PROBABLY be able to:
*build a tower of 6 cubes - I think so.
*throw a ball overhand - the only want she knows how.
*speak and be understood half the time - by us, yes. By stragers, I'm not so sure.
*indentify pictures by pointing and naming - I am still not exactly sure what is meant by this, but Serena points and names lots of things in books, so I think she's meeting the requirements.

POSSIBLY be able to:
*jump - especially on the couch.

May EVEN be able to:
*draw a vertical line - her favorite type.
*build a tower of 8 cubes - not sure.

She can't put on her own clothes or carry on a conversation yet. After this, we go into the quarterly updates, which I always forget. I'll try harder to remember.

2006-05-01T10:33:00.000-04:00

Bri has the pox. She has a lot of pox. They don't seem to be bugging her much yet, but they haven't moved to the itchy stage.

Serena doesn't have them yet, but should get them in about a week.

2006-04-30T09:10:00.000-04:00

It's official - we are having another girl. Seems to be the preferred model around here. :) Bri's a little disappointed, but not overly so. She just wants the baby to hurry up and get here.

Speaking of Bri, she read her dinosaur report in front of all the primary grade kids in an assembly last week. She did really well.

2006-04-17T10:36:00.000-04:00

I'm a couple days late on Serena's update, sue me.

SHOULD be able to:
*kick a small ball forward - yup, although she prefers to throw them.

PROBABLY be able to:
*combine words - she just started doing this.
*Identify 6 body parts by naming - we have broken the ear/eye hassle, so I think so.
*Use 50+ single words - I think so.

May EVEN be able to:
*Identify four items in a picture by naming - yup.

Things she can't do include better sentance structure and putting on her own clothes.

2006-04-14T18:21:00.000-04:00

The pictures are all caught up to the end of 2005. Now I'm only 4 1/2 months behind. I fixed a few of the broken links as well. Hopefully tomorrow I can make the 2006 page, but we have a bunch of things we want to get done, so it may have to wait.

2006-04-11T14:13:00.000-04:00

Website related goodness. I am working on updating the pictures and fixing the broken links. Since I'm only 8 months or so behind. Presumably this third kid is going to look exactly like the first two, but I guess people will want new pictures anyways.

So far, all I have updated is my sewing page. It was small and easy. Now, it looks like it has broken links (Sigs, 2006, Pets, Mike's Page) but they just don't go anywhere yet. They are linked to pages I haven't created. Hopefully within the next month all be all caught up in the Picture pages and maybe fix up the Sigs and Pets. Mike's page is more of a challenge.

2006-03-23T09:55:00.000-05:00

On Sunday night, Bri was goofing around in the livingroom and somehow fell and twisted her ankle. It was close to bedtime anyways, so we just put her to bed assuming she'd be fine in the morning. In the morning, there was still no walking. So we got to spend the entire day in the ER. Whee. I've never been there so long in my life. The X-rays were done pretty much immediately, we just had to wait forever for a doctor to come and tell us if anything was broken or what. As it turns out it's a bad sprain, and she has to wear a tensor bandage and stay out of gym for a few weeks. She missed two days of school, but she went yesterday.

This also meant she couldn't go to her last ballet class, which made her sad.

2006-03-14T15:00:00.000-05:00

Bri is now five, boo hoo. She had three friends from school over on Friday which she enjoyed. Then she had her party on Saturday which she also enjoyed. She got lots of nice stuff, and a bit of money to help redecorate her room when we get there. It's next, hopefully our bedroom will be finished by the end of April. Bri also went for her 5 year old check up, she's pretty much the same - 42" and 41 pounds. She was none too pleased with her shots though.

Serena has another ear infection, I think this is #4. Normally she's not too upset about it, but this time she was quite fevered and whiny. She's on amoxicillian again and feels better.

The cat has an ear infection too, hurray.

Serena is also getting closer to 2, so here's her update.

SHOULD be able to:
*use 6 words - she uses a lot now. Her talking is really getting better.
*walk up steps - she still uses her arms a lot on the rails to haul herself up. She has short legs.

PROBABLY be able to:
*build a tower of 4 cubes - I think so.
*follow a 2 step command without gestures - Serena understands far more than she says.

POSSIBLY be able to:
*build a tower of 6 cubes - not sure.
*Identify four pictures by pointing - yup.
*wash and dry hands - I have no idea. Bad germy mom.

May EVEN be able to:
*jump up - I'd classify it more as a hop, but sure.

2006-02-20T10:26:00.000-05:00

We went to see Bri's ballet class last week, that was amusing to say the least. She dances rather like a drunken rhino. She seems to really enjoy the class though, and that's what counts. She's also really looking forward to her birthday. I can't beleive she's so close to being 5.

Serena is also inching towards 2. Her vocabulary is starting to take off finally, she says Princess (when she wants to dress up), Dora, clue (from Blue's Clue's) and can repeat any colours you tell her. She tries to get them on her own, but the only one she seems to know most of the time is green. Here's her book update.

SHOULD be able to:
*build a tower of two cubes - she can do this. I think maybe more as well.
*point to one body part when asked - she knows at least five, but she refuses to call ears anything other than eyes and Mike taught her that her mouth is "bleh".

PROBABLY be able to:
*kick a ball forward - she prefers to throw them overhand, but yup.
*Identify 2 pictures by naming - she can do way more than 2. She loves books now.
*Remove an article of clothing - yes. She doesn't like pants.

May POSSIBLY be able to:
*Brush teeth, with help - still, only if chewing on the brush counts.

The may even is putting on clothes, and while she helps by lifting her feet for socks and putting her arms in sleeves, I don't think she could put anything on herself.

2006-02-07T09:43:00.000-05:00

Bri got her report card last week, and it said everything I expected it to. She's smart and eager, but has a bit of trouble with the other kids and waiting her turn for stuff. She's going to be part of the group of kids that is learning how to write/spell words so they can write sentances and things. She had her third ballet class last night and Mike said the teacher told him Bri was a good addition to the class, she's doing well and is amusing to have around. I can hardly wait to see this next week.

Serena is rapidly picking up new words now, which is good. She's learning colours and can say easel and stitches and piles of things. She's also been in a much better mood the past week and I think that's a combination of her sleeping better and speaking better.

#3 appears to be a single baby, which is good. I had an ultrasound last week and everything appears to be all normal. I haven't uploaded pictures in years it seems (although I am working on it) but at the bottom of this page is the ultrasound picture beside the pregnancy counter.

2006-01-31T15:32:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to get in here and post for a week, but I am lazy. Mostly because the dog is a PITA, but hey.

Bri started Ballet last Monday, she's had two classes. We're not allowed to watch until the 4th week and then not again until the 8th, so I have no idea what is going on in there. She showed me parallel position and then started hopping all over, so yeah. She's on a waiting list for skating, I hope she gets in.

Serena's new word is tatoo. Heh. She's also started adding the b to banana, which is good.

I had a midwife appointment last Tuesday, nothing really to report on that. They sucked my blood and I gained 5 pounds. They decided they wanted me to go for an ultrasound "for dating purposes", which is totally unnecessary, because if my dates are off, it can't be more than a week, and that's pushing it. But, I am not one to turn down free ultrasounds. I've never had one this early before, so it should be interesting.

2006-01-13T11:20:00.000-05:00

I am sooo slow. Bad me. Bad.

I missed a month on the Serena update, but suffice to say she still doesn't talk much and is trouble. Mega trouble.

Bri is back in school and happy about it.

Christmas was good, the kids were spoiled rotten, as usual. Serena's favourite present seems to be a glow worm where Bri enjoys all her Barbie Pet stuff.

We got a puppy a few days after Christmas because someone I knew turned out to be allergic to him and he needed somewhere to go. We named him Moose and he's a serious PITA. He's slightly better behaved than DeeDee was, possibly because he's smaller (he's a beagleX). He pees all over everything though and constantly escapes from the spot in the kitchen we're trying to contain him to. He's been to the vet once already and checked out health wise. He's getting his shots tonight, and will be neutered next month.

Last, as most of the family knows, I am pregnant again. We're expecting the third screaming weasel Aug 23rd or thereabouts. I've seen a midwife already, unfortunately Jane has the whole summer off and Liz is off the week of my DD so I have a different woman, Teri, but she seems nice. Teri is a new midwife like Liz, and they actually share a caseload. I will see Liz once or twice for my appointments and if I birth while she's in town she could be the one delivering. We also learned that one of our neighbours is a midwife in the same practice, which is good. This way, if I have emergency birthing on the lawn I might get some back up. ;) We're hoping we might have a boy this time, but who knows. Nobody would complain about another girl.

And now, a book update for Serena so I don't forget again.
SHOULD be able to:
*dump objects - all over the house. Fun.
*use a spoon/fork - yes, and it must be all by herself. There is no damage control for pudding anymore.
*run - like a bit of a gimp, but hey. Mike says she runs like she has no knees.

May POSSIBLY be able to:
*combine words - unless 'all gone' counts, no.
*identify a picture by naming - yup.
*name six body parts - she calls an ear an eye, so I'm not sure if we're up to 6. She's got boobie down though, heh.
*throw a ball overhand - yes, and it's a scary thing.

May EVEN be able to:
*identify 4 pictures by naming - yes.
*build a tower of six cubes - I'm not sure.

The things she can't do involve talking. No one understands her half the time and she sure doesn't have 50 words yet.

2005-12-14T11:45:00.000-05:00

Serena has her second ear infection, whee. The puking illness took some time to get over, it appears she is either temporarly or permanently lactose intollerant now as well. And basically as soon as she stopped puking, she got this ear infection. Kids are fun. She's has cheese again since, and it doesn't seem to be bothering her now, I think I might try milk next week.

Brianna read 25 books and got her certificate, which she is happy about. She also went up a reading level, but it is still within the grade 1 range. She really loves school and is having lunch there on Friday (they are having some sort of turkey thing) and she's already planning her outfit. Heh.

2005-11-25T15:58:00.000-05:00

I few days ago (or maybe a week - who knows anymore?) Serena had her 18 month check up. She's slightly less huge, so this is good. 25 pounds, which is the 50th percentile and 33" which is back on the charts at 98th percentile. She got two needles, one in each arm and she wasn't too impressed about that.

In other news, the kids had their first puking illness. Both of them threw up in the morning a few days apart. They seem fine now.

2005-11-14T11:21:00.000-05:00

Serena is a year and a half today! She is one big kid. Some other toddler called her a baby at the Children's Museum the other day, and it was funny because she was bigger than him. She has her 18m appt at the doctor's tomorrow, so we'll find out just how big she is. I suspect big.

She is talking more now, although her favorite words are still shoe, baby, hi and no. Oh, and mine. That's a new one. She has also learned hat, star, apple and boobie (heh), but seems to only say those when prompted. She talks more like a baby than Bri did, Bri pretty much pronounced words properly from the beginning. Serena uses baby approximations, like ba pa for backpack and ap po for apple. Hat is just ha and star is tah. It's cute though. She says Daddy, but all I get is maaaaaaaa! Weasel.

SHOULD be able to:
*use three words - Serena can say about 25, but only uses 5 regularly.
*point to a desired object - oh yes. This is my favorite stage. The point and "ahh ahh ahh!" stage. Whee.

PROBABLY be able to:
*run - like a weirdo, but she runs.
*use a spoon/fork - yup.
*point to a body part when asked - I haven't asked.

POSSIBLY be able to:
*kick a ball forward - yup.
*follow a two step command w/o gestures - yup. She understands everything you tell her.

She can't do any of the may evens. I haven't seen her point to something in a book and name it yet, and she doesn't use over 50 words.

While I'm here, I can update about Bri too. She still loves school, unless there's something good on TV then she doesn't want to go. Her reading was assessed at somewhere around a grade 1 1/2 level. She has "homework" now - the kids get books in an envelope and have to read them every night. If they read 25 in a month they get a prize. I think Bri's read about 10 already.

Her skating is going well, she's moved back up to the purple penguins and seems to be skating along happily. Her backwards skating is really improving.