There's no place like home.

In this moment, I am struggling.

My course for September is full, without me in it. So now I'm wondering if this is fate. If I'm meant to be doing something else. Or if all the pieces will fall into place and I'll get pulled from the waitlist.

The boys are playing happily together upstairs right now, but no one is napping, which of course means mama ain't napping. (How sad is it that spell check recognized "ain't"??) Why is it always the day I need a nap the most that they simply refuse? My temper is already short. This isn't helping. I know their napping days are numbered, Elliot rarely does anymore. But my goodness, he really needed it today.

In addition to being a dairy and soy free family (and a caffeine-free mama who should also be sugar free) we are now supposed to be gluten free. This is intimidating and frustrating and leaves me wondering what we'll be able to eat. And hoping that we get to witness all the positive health changes quickly to make it all feel worth while. Felix has nasty eczema patches on the tops of his feet that won't clear up. He had specialist appointments last week - one for his hemangioma (it's fine, still wait-and-seeing) and another for his ears (which aren't fine - still full of fluid, despite no more ear infections since coming off dairy in March. Follow up in October, plus another hearing test. To their surprise, he passed the last one. I'm suspicious it's because Elliot was in the room too and might have been supplying involuntary, non-verbal clues during the testing). During both appointments, he pointed to his feet and told the doctor to check them because they hurt. Poor boy. We got some prescription hydrocortizone cream, which is proving to be somewhat helpful on the red spots. But now gluten's got to go.

Creamed for 5 days and still red and crusty.

It's faded so much! And lookit those eyelashes. He's such a beauty!

I  find myself snapping at boys frequently, with unrealistic expectations for their behaviour. Felix is in a run away phase. I hated it with Elliot and handled it badly, but convinced myself it was due to the post-partum depression and the fact that I had to cart around - or abandon - a baby to sprint after the runner. But no, I'm learning I just handle it wrong. I yell and threaten and grab at arms and plunk his struggling, screaming body into the stroller as punishment. He came stupid close to being hit by a car over the weekend. To the point he was actually touching the car when it stopped. (Not the fault of the driver, not really.) Another time he chased some pigeons out into a busy grocery store parking lot. Often he willfully runs away, though many other times he's just not paying attention. I think part of this comes back to those blocked ears. He's not paying attention because he can't hear properly.

Already today, I've snapped at Elliot multiple times, "When I tell you to stop touching something STOP TOUCHING it! Now." Doesn't matter what it is, the phone, computer, car, neighbour's car, the cat (I also told him that if she scratched him, I wouldn't do anything. He chases her and picks her up and teases her. She's old and cranky as it is. She has and will scratch.) And he's taken to shouting these things back at me, too... "Mama, I asked you and then I told you and now I'm gonna make you get me some ice cream!" *sigh*

I've misplaced my Cupcake book. Might be for the best, but I would like to find it. I searched Elliot's room in case he'd pilfered it, being enamored of it as he was. Nope. I hope it didn't end out at the Curb.

I'm looking forward to Thursday when we have a home visit from the Calm Parenting specialist. I'm hoping she can give me some tips and suggestions on simplifying our home to make things calmer over the summer. Because yeah, only 4 more daycare days between now and next week. Then they're both home with me for 2 months. Yesterday I was looking forward to it. Today I'm not.

Then again, today 'I'm not' a lot of things: energetic, caring, rested, coping. I would like to start over, please. Do they make ruby red slippers for that?

Coffee with mama

The many faces of Felix as we sat in the sunny window of a coffee shop. We shared hot chocolate and a tea biscuit. This kid cracks me up!

Poor Baby.

Making supper this evening was, as usual, a gong show. I tried not to give in to the TV demands and was doing well, despite the whining and hitting going on at my feet. As I casually scooped Felix out of the way with my foot to open the fridge door, he cranked up his protest. Drew upon the dark powers that be to turn his hemangioma deep purple. Then black. Blacker than I'd ever seen it before. He wasn't breathing - just stuck in that silent inhale kids do just before they let loose a scream so loud it makes you drop everything and run through fire to rescue them from whatever horror must be ripping them limb from limb.

I expected him to snap out of it and wail, but he didn't. He was sitting at my feet, looking up at me and spinning himself around in circles, gasping. I told him gently to breathe, then picked him up and blew in his face. That got through to him, he inhaled and then his eyes rolled shut and he collapsed against me. I think he actually may have fainted for a second. It was rather alarming.

So then the TV came on, while I tried to calm myself down and snuggle with the suddenly limp noodle in my arms. His hemangioma shriveled up and looked like a prune for a few minutes, then started to plump back up. Weird. Poor baby. Poor mama! Elliot was happy, though - the TV was back on!

Speaking of poor babies... I was saddened to hear that Patrick Swayze passed away last night. Who's gonna get poor Baby out of that corner now? Many great memories from that movie. Thank you, Mr. Swayze. RIP.

Friday yet?

What a week and it's only Wednesday.

Sunday night, Elliot spiked a fever. It was 103 in his ear, which means it was at least 104 internally. (I refuse to subject my 3 yr old to a rectal thermometer!) Monday morning, he was so polite and good natured. Jay and I looked at each other with alarm. Who.was.this.child??? (Especially since both Sat & Sun mornings he went batshitinsaneballistic.)

At lunch time, he said the blueberries hurt his mouth. Thinking they might be stuck between his teeth, I peeked inside. And saw that he had strep throat. It was the Natal Day holiday Monday, and there was only 1 walk in clinic open in the city that we could find, so off we set. After 2.5 hours, we got confirmation and a prescription for amoxil. Which took over 24 hours to kick in. He's been batshitinsane since then.

Tuesday I took Felix for his 1 year check up and shots. Poor little monkey SCREAMED with totally justified rage when his nice dr jammed the 1st needle in his thigh. I was nursing him at the time and his mouth opened wide, dribbling the unswallowed milk everywhere. His hemangioma darkened to a deep purple, almost black and for a moment I thought 'Here goes. THIS is the time it will just rocket off his face and drench us all in gore.' But it settled down. Poor boy. He'd been happily smiling and playing peek a boo with the dr moments before, and now he was buried in my neck, shooting highly distrustful and pissed off looks out at her.

He settled down enough, then it was round 2 - the MMR shot in his arm. More screams. More black hemangioma and threatening looks. But more mama milk soon calmed him down enough that the incident was, mostly, forgotten.

There might have been a 3rd immunization, but since Elliot thoughtfully brought home chicken pox from daycare when Felix was 7 months old, there was no need for that vaccination. We would have delayed it until school age, anyway. Which is what we did with Elliot, and the rest is history!

Tuesday afternoon, Elliot had such a wicked melt down, I went next door and asked if they could take Felix for 20 minutes or so while I calmed down the banshee.

That night at supper, I turned around to see Elliot's finger buried up to a knuckle in his nose. I asked him first if he needed a tissue, but there was something about his behaviour that made me ask what was up there. He giggled and said "Macaroni." Stinker. I could only just see it when I tilted his head and flared out his nostril. I couldn't get him to blow it out, so I called the brand new Nurse Link line that they just set up here last week and they confirmed we had tried everything we could at home and we should take him to the IWK.

Back over to our neighbour's I went - she graciously drove Jay & Elliot there and even left her daughter's car seat so they could cab home if she wasn't able to come back for them! At the hospital, after looking at it, they decided to try one more thing: Jay had to lay Elliot down, cover the non-noodled nostril and blow hard into Elliot's mouth. He had to do it about 5 times (and there was much talk at that point about having to freeze his nose and extract it, since it didn't appear to be working) but then the noodle came down far enough that they were able to sit Elliot up again and get him to blow really hard a few times and it shot out. Lucky duck. Extraction wouldn't have been fun. But I half wish they had done the extraction, if only to teach him a lesson. (Bad mama!) I think he knows the seriousness of the situation now, but it would be even harder to forget about it is they when the freezing & such route.

When they came home Elliot ran up to me and said, very solemnly, "That wasn't a good idea."

This morning, Wednesday, Felix has a fever. It's only 100.5 (in his ear), but he's rather cranky. Probably just a reaction to the immunizations, but I really hope it's not the start of strep throat. The dr said to minimize the boys' contact, and to not let them share food/cups/utensils. Yeah right. Easypeasy.

I've spent the last 3 nights bed hopping and medicating the boys. *YAWN* I told Jay this morning that he should feel free to come home from work early! And where are my boys now, you might be wondering? Parked in front of the TV while I sip my coffee and cruise the internet. I won't be winning any awards today. We always said that our kids wouldn't watch much, if any, TV. And when that started to change, we vowed that the TV wouldn't become a babysitter. Things never work out the way you plan. I console myself with the knowledge that we screen their shows and they have a short list of programs we deem to be a good mix of education/entertaining.

Ahhhh. And then mama gets time to pee alone. Cook supper. Surf the internet. Put one child down for a nap so the other doesn't go batshitinsanedestructive... you know, the basics!

Celebrations

We celebrated Felix's first birthday today, two days early. All the guests wore red dots on their foreheads instead of party hats. It was charming.


The sun came out and it was very hot, so we spilled from the house into the yard. The kids ran around, the grown ups crowded around the food and kept the peace between the kids. Other than Elliot's 1.5 hour long tantrum and the fact that I had such a blinding headache last night that only the bare minimum prep work was done in advance resulting in the 10:30 party starting at 11:00, after enlisting help from guests to get the rest of the food set out, I'd say the party was a success! (How's that for a run on sentence... :P)

Felix has exploded into sounds. As I was nursing him down to sleep tonight in the guest bed, he unlatched, looked up at me and exclaimed "uh-oh!" He was so proud. For weeks now, he's been saying the "uh" part, but hasn't been able to get the "oh" sound attached. Then we heard a dog bark outside and I said "woof!" He replied "ooooooof!" Then he sat up and somehow banged the back of his head on the wall. I told him to "be careful - ow!" So, he deliberately banged his head again and said "ow!" Such a chatterbox!

Ugh. I'm very sleepy now. Have some things to catch up on (for my bookkeeping clients, mostly) so I better get on with it... *sigh*

Day in the park

We went to see a specialist about Felix's hemangioma today. Feel much better since the doctor confirmed we've been handling the bleeds correctly: applying pressure, putting cream on to moisturize the skin/loosen any scabs. He likened the hemangioma to a honeycomb. It's full of blood vessels, but there are also blood pockets - when he scrapes it, the pocket that's been hit will well up alarmingly, but should stop bleeding quickly. There's no pulse to the spot, which means it doesn't have a steady supply of blood being pumped through it, so that means he shouldn't bleed out in the night.

After the appointment, we went for a walk in the public gardens. Felix was in a good mood, so I got a coffee and we stopped at a bench while I read my book and fed him little bits of cracker. Then I changed his diaper on a bench, letting the sunshine and warm breeze hit his skin for a bit while he looked at the big purple flowering shrub behind us.

Got some groceries on the way home, had a nap, did a few dishes and made supper. Then went to pick up Elliot from daycare. A nice, full day.

Tomorrow has us going back to the clinic at the hospital to see a different specialist about Felix's persistently infected ingrown toenails. Which are currently healed and the nails are falling off. I hope this means we've reached the end of the infections and pain for him. Hopefully that's what the surgeon will tell us, too. I feel silly for going, but I know if I don't, the infection will come back twice as bad next week!

Will have both boys with me tomorrow. That could be a gong show! Planning to take the double jogging stroller I bought before I was pregnant with Felix. It's been in storage for a loooong time. We dig it out a few days ago and had to replace one of the tubes in the tire - there was a shard of metal that punctured the new tube over and over. It's all good now, and I can't wait to get them both out in it!

Poetry and motion

There's nothing quite as terrifying as seeing your child's face covered in blood. And blood caked in eyelashes is really tricky to clean, especially since babies rarely cooperate.

Felix rubbed his hemangioma against the mesh side of the playpen again. It bled. It's the 5th time it's bled, the 4th time in the damn playpen, ad the second major bleed. The first major bleed happened when he scraped the scab from the first bleed off on a wicker basket. The other scrapes he's had in the playpen were tiny - a few drops of blood, enough to put a small stain on his bib and crust up on his head. Nothing major.

This time, there were no scabs. I put him in the playpen to keep him out of Elliot's way while I went to the bathroom. Jay was folding laundry a few feet away. I had barely sat down when Jay bellowed "Jesus Christ!" Quickly followed by "Honey, get down here." I managed to get my jeans up and buttoned by time I hit the bottom of the steps. Felix's whole face was red. His hands were red. Jay had a cloth pressed to the hemangioma and I knew that's where the blood was coming from, but it was terrifying. Together we got wet cloths and applied pressure and got him into a sitting position to still the flow. It stopped quickly, but left a mess in it's wake. Elliot continued to play with cars at our feet, oblivious to the chaos.

The playpen will be dismantled this weekend. He's not going back in it.

We are meeting with a specialist next week to discuss possible treatment options. Since it's on his forehead and not interfering with his sight or anything else, removal would be considered cosmetic. But since he bumps/scrapes it frequently and it bleeds copiously, someone needs to look at it and make sure he's not going to bleed to death or have scars from it all.


Up until then, we'd had a pretty fun day. Went to the Fun Zone to celebrate Elliot's friend's 3rd birthday. It's a tall structure, completely enclosed and padded. There's a ball bit, lengthy slides, tunnels, monkey bars... Elliot slept through the first 30 minutes of the party and then had the blind staggers for the next little bit, but by the end, he was having a blast. The ball pit was a huge hit - he would climb up the side and launch himself bodily down into the pile. He couldn't figure out how to climb each level in the mesh stairs case - each level was about 2 feet high with a hole cut in the floor. Jay or I had to snake in their with him and push him up each level and then snake ourselves back down. By time we had to leave, of course he'd found a way to dig his toes in and could do it on his own...

Felix had a great time on the floor mats. The area is enclosed and there were toys for the little ones to play with. Felix practiced pulling himself to standing.







I found a few minutes to dig up some old poetry tonight to see if it would spark anything new in me. I haven't written since high school. These are some of my favorite pieces - it feels good to dust them off and bring them out of storage:

filter

filter me a love song

thru strands of hair and bone

make it make my dreams come true

and all my pieces whole

shelter me from danger

while pilfering my soul

chase away the thoughts of you

and then come back for more

fill me with emotions

watch them writhe and grow

take away my love from me

and follow where it goes

filter me a love song

seep it thru the ground

sweeten my dreams with webs of fire

then watch them burn me down

cyanosis

can i be your salt peter
an acid sharp explosion
rocking sense into your world
thru the morning can i play
in your sandbox building castles
smiling
so you can knock them down
with your size 9 shoe
can i wander naked in your veins
pausing
when i want to
causing the pain you crave when i am there
and i'll be the dust in your eye-
stinging you blind to my beauty
-the infection on your palm
making you itch to move [me]
you wound me with your words
and so will i
so surround me with your ignorance
and i'll try
to turn you blue
from lack of air

satori

hey you sitting on the edge of tomorrow
flatten your palm to my face and feel the breath of sorrow rushing
by. yeah, and like the iridescent snow drops that kiss your
fragrant skin and make you burst open to fill the gap with your
pristine face and greasy hands, you took the blue from the night
and smeared it on your name with smatterings of forever.
yeah, you set a match to yesterday and sat, curled on the edge of
tomorrow warming your sorrow on the flames. and it was here and
there and everywhere and the smell sent me to the edge of madness.
and you're the rose clenched between the teeth of tomorrow, with
your salty breath and chapped raw skin, on your cloud you lay
reaching the stars with your inch of my love.
and i stare into your eyes, into you, and i see the pain smeared
thru the strands of your hair, and you, like the picture of
innocence tattooed on your body, will fade away into tomorrow.
yeah, like sunshine on water, you turn me away from the edge, so i
may breathe again.

Quarantined angel

i'm drowning in your insulin-
a pinpoint in your panoramic view...
you climb the cliffs of forever
and disappear over their edge.

and once you've learned every trick,
every nuance, every shadow
and you've discovered every secret...
with your soul on fire
burning straps into your shoulders,
you still won't let me in.

rambling angel with one eye closed;
shut yourself away up on the shelf
behind the tin soldiers
and the thread-worn teddy bear
where you think i can't find you.
yeah, you make me feel so small
with the layers of confusion you pile on my head
and you say i blow your mind.

but when all is said and done,
when the scroll is viewed in
microscopic detail, dusted for fingerprints,
you're still on the shelf with the broken top
and the jack-in-the-box.

and you say you'd rather
gather flowers in the rain.