In the Eye of the Hurricane

Today feels like a storm is raging in my living room. Jack has gotten the flu and I've cleaned up vomit 5 times now, and it's only 3pm. The poor kid is hungry, so I give him a little drink and whammo, back it comes. (I'm really on a roll for producing gross blog posts lately, sorry! but then again, this is life, and my life right now, and if you're reading this then I guess you are willing to share the ups and downs.) In between the chaotic moments of running to place the bucket, wiping the floor when the bucket is missed completely, bathing Jack, changing my own clothing, and setting up the poor boy back on the couch with a video, I've been scrapping a little. I've had this idea to make family flashcards for a while, I'm pretty excited about them. I'm just going to print them as 4x6 photos and then laminate. ok, time to rub a little back...poor little man!

This and That

Well yesterday was a day that went from difficult to strained to rotten to horrible to ridiculous, SO I'm starting out my day by blogging which always makes me happy. I woke up in a horrible, grouchy mood and of course as the saying goes, "When Mama ain't happy ain't nobody happy." Jack seems to be able to sense my weakness and is up to hijinx and trouble faster than you can say, "sell you to the circus". By about nine am he had destroyed a book by ripping the pages out, taken a container of food off of the counter and spilled it all over, tried to play with the knives in the dishwasher, eaten toothpaste and whacked his brother. And then it got worse. Things picked up somewhat when Darrel got home, he can always cheer me up, and then frankly I'm not out numbered any more. But then after we had bathed the kids, got them all ready for bed etc. Jack had an "accident". This was my lesson to not feed your child a huge bowl of grapes and let them drink 2 glasses of prune juice in the same day. (Ok, for all of you think I'm daft, let me defend myself by saying that as Jack was asking for more prune juice and I was pouring, I said to myself, oh this is so healthy, mmm, lots of iron! I really didn't think at all about the bowel cleansing properties.) I have never seen so much poop, ever. I took a picture, just for my own enjoyment later, when I wasn't knee deep in it, but I think it's a tad too graphic for the blog, only a parent could really get a laugh out of that one without being totally grossed out. Suffice it to say the poop was literally from ankles to shoulder blades.

In other news: I was blessed to receive a couple of really great books for my birthday. I've been speed reading my way through both of them. The first, given to me by Anne, is titled, "Honeymoon in Purdah", and written by Canadian, Alison Wearing. It really broke down a lot of stereotypes I had about the middle east and in particular Iran. I re-discovered that I love reading travel writing. It's so interesting to grasp another part of the world through another's eyes. The people of Iran seem so warm, friendly and kind. This book was quite funny too, a definite bonus. Here's a passage I particularly enjoyed where some new found Iranian friends try to gussy up Alison prior to dinner.

"Sayeh comes back into the room with lipstick. The blood-red one she bought at the market the other day. It is looked at under the light, approved, smeared on my lips, then on my cheeks and massaged into my skin. The four women stand back and assess. Narghes asks for an eyebrow pencil and lines my eyelids. She jerks my chin and is about to begin colouring my eyebrows when she takes a closer look and rears back. She looks confused or annoyed. I can't quite tell which. She screws up her face and looks again, then asks something of Sayeh. Sayeh nods. Narghes asks me something about my husband. I shrug. She asks the same question slowly. Narghes squats in front of me and speaks with every sound exaggerated and enunciated. She points to my wedding ring and asks if I am married. I nod. She smiles and looks at Sayeh. They both shrug. Narghes goes on to explain that she, too, is married. She runs her fingernail along her carefully plucked eyebrows as if to prove her status. She does the same to Sayeh's thin sculpted brows and to those of her eldest daughter, also married, Narghes explains. Then she pulls her youngest daughter beside her and points to her thick bushy brows. Not married. Narghes pulls out a compact mirror from her purse and asks me to hold it up to my face. I stare into the tiny image of myself and watch Narghes run her finger over my bushy brows and trace the shape of eyebrows a married woman should have.

I am left with a sketch of eyebrow rounded into a high arch and accentuated with charcoal pencil. The plucked section beneath is swollen up like a welt. Ian is so shocked by the sigh of me, he chokes and spills his tea on the carpet. Narghes laughs and slaps me on the back. It's because I'm so beautiful, she explains. My Husband is very shocked. "Good grief", Ian whispers. "You look like a plastic poinsettia." What? Narghes demands to know that Ian is saying. "Like a flower," he says. "She looks like a flower. Hamid translates and the room gives a collective sigh. Narghes smiles proudly and fluffs out the bow on my head. Takes my hand and leads me to the kitchen."

I really loved this book, I wish she had sprnt another six months in Iran so the book could've been twice the size!

And finally, Darrel and I started to do some preliminary planning for my business website. Funny how times have changed, I consider the website critical to even actively starting my business...when 20 or even 10 years ago, you wouldn't have even needed one at all. I'm excited about working on it. Actually Darrel and I are both excited about it. In many ways this will be the first non-home project we've done together in a long time. Our interests have taken somewhat of a fork in the road in the last couple of years...well not totally but we have less time to focus on hobbies etc so we each do what we really love. for me it's the digital scrapbooking. For Darrel, it's been building his recumbent bike and CNC machine. Kind of divergent paths. So it will be nice to do something together. I already have one "job". I'm creating a wedding album for Darrel's co-worker, Jennine. So hopefully it just gets bigger and better from here. :)

Ok, time to get some boys dressed and fed etc.

Scrapbook Catch up

Lately Eric has not been sleeping to well; his need to be rocked half the evening, and my exhaustion, have really cut into my scrapbooking time! So I am busy trying to crank out the pages to get back up to speed with the milestone events.

We love Grammie

Well, I drove my Mom to the airport this morning after a wonderful 4 day visit. The house feels a little empty to me without her here, and Jack keeps yelling, Graaaaammmie. Sigh.
On a positive note: it was so nice to be nurtured and cared for. But that is the beauty of my parents being back in Canada, these visits will hopefully happen more often. While she was here we were able to get a lot organized in the basement, and I did a huge food storage run at Costco as we could have two carts. Mostly, I just enjoyed chatting and watching the boys soak up all the attention and love. Thanks for coming, we love you!

Pre-Birthday Musings

A shameless lift of Karly's layout of words describing herself.

Great Gifts

Since Christmas we've been enjoying playing with new toys, reading new books, splashing in the bathtub and creating art with the great gifts that the boys received. Yesterday, the weather was so nice, a balmy 0 degrees compared with the minus 20 it's been recently, that when Darrel arrived home, Jack and I got dressed in our snow clothes and went out for a walk. The sled from Nan is pretty popular around here. (As a side note, you can see how much snow there is by the edge of the driveway, it's higher than my waist.)

Last week I pulled out the colour wonder finger paints from Lara, Dean and Aidan for Jack. That was a definite hit! The only trick is that he got so into it that he used up most of the paint on two pictures. I tried, but could not convince him that less is more in this case. And then this week I was unpacking another box from downstairs and found the Jolly Jumper that Lavonne & Co. passed on to us. Eric enjoyed himself, and Jack seemed to have just as much fun watching and laughing. Last night I was putting away some clothes that the boys had outgrown and I had to be thankful for all of the clothes that have been passed on to us by our family. I really have not had to buy very many clothes for the boys as Lavonne, (and Lara as she has given things to Lavonne), has given us so much. So thanks to all of you for all of your generosity, we appreciate it and have been enjoying it!

Afternoon Break and Fun Time

Yesterday we had to regroup and just have some fun. I borrowed this idea off of Karly, and man did my boys have a good time! It is great having a number of friends with kids the same age. We can share ideas and tricks and I feel like I'm not the only one "in the trenches" so to speak.

Child Activities

Some mothers seem to be blessed with abundant imagination to come up with new, fun, educational and exciting activities for their kids every day. I don't think I'm in this category...so I resort to getting books out of the library and borrowing other people's creativity. As Jack gets older I find I am resorting to this more and more as I'm looking for ways to keep this boy busy. I scanned some of the ideas/activities as I thought some of my friends and family with young kids may be interested in trying them out.

More Bread Machine Recipes for Lily (and Tricia and Karly and Dale...and others)

Hey Lil and all you other bread machine divas,
Here's some more recipes for the bread machine. These ones are from the instruction manual that came with the book. I make the raisin bread and the honey oatmeal quite often and they are a hit around here. The pumpernickel is quite dark, good with soups and stews, it has a strong molasses taste to it. I haven't made the dried onion soup or pumpkin nut breads yet but they're on my list of things to try so if you make them let me know how they turn out. I didn't scan the instructions for the pumpkin nut as they went over on another page, basically add all the ingredients in order listed and bake using the BASIC setting. Enjoy!

A New Favorite Thing

This focaccia recipe really is heaven in a loaf of bread, mmmmmmmm!