Edit: "A Week in the Crazy-Mom, Sick-Toddler Life"

Alright, so it's Friday. Wednesday and Thursday, I couldn't even type. Why, you ask? Several factors were involved, however, I will say that the main one was that I have had the shakes. The shakes?!?! Yes, the shakes. From drinking mug after mug of coffee in attempt to keep my eyelids from closing down so hard that I can no longer see the toddler, who although is sick and absolutely unable to sleep by night, still, by some miracle has the energy of a mole by day. Like the kind of mole who lives in my backyard, digging and digging and digging in his blind, hurried urgency all day long until I have barely a blade of grass left to call yard. Like that.
So we will start over next week, hopefully in a more lovely, adventurous, Autumn week, with lots of pictures to see and stories to tell. And it works out perfectly, because Monday is Canadian Thanksgiving!! What a perfect way to kick off the week! I am going to spend the weekend preparing for a giant delicious Thanksgiving dinner, and I will teach Eli about how he gets two Thanksgivings, because he is both Canadian and American. And we will learn about being grateful for the Harvest!!! I will be back later to share more about our weekend. Today I don't have to work, so I plan to get some groceries, maybe hit up an Apple orchard, and try to regain some portion of my sanity and some order in this house. My mama is coming tonight, and will watch E tomorrow while I work. Sunday we're going to a Barn Bash, so there should be some good photos to share. And it's a costume party, so look out for extremely cute dressed up babies!!!

Tuesday.

So this cold is reeking havoc on my sanity and my mind.

Tuesday we were sleepy and grumpy. I had to spend my evening away, purveying coffee, and then returned home to find Eli sleepy and grumpy still.

He's miserable, and now has a fever. Boo. Hiss.

So Tuesday, check ya later. Don't let the door hit you. Or actually, maybe you should.

And on a lighter note, you might want to take a gander at this little sweetie pie. Meet Elinor kitten. She lives outside under my deck. That's right. I have a kitten.

And even though Eli is very confused about cats and how they are or are not lions, and even though every morning when we go out to feed her, Eli gets on his hands and knees and growls at her, in an inappropriately loud, albeit extremely boyish voice; I think he likes her. And she, him. And Elinor kitten may have been the one thing about Tuesday that made Eli smile with delight.

Monday, Monday, Can't Trust That Day.

So today was a bit of a bust. As I begin this series of "A Week in the Life" posts, I have to tell you that this was not exactly a typical day. Eli's cold got worse as the day wore on, and so did my exhaustion. But it's still us. And it's still a week. And it's still our life. So here goes.

E awoke around 9am, which I stress, is ONLY because he was up all night crying in my lap, and then dozed off around 5:30am to get some real sleep. Usually we are up with the sun. So once he was up, we got started with breakfast and "toons". First breakfast usually entails dry cereal, raisins, and a banana with a glass of milk. This takes place at the coffee table whilst watching Thomas the Train, repetitious and stressed out little engine that he is, and sometimes E likes to mix it up with a little Bob the Builder, or the Noggin toon of the hour. You will find me sleepily sipping my coffee and if I can, reading a blog, or a newspaper, or a bit of my Bible, or whatever book I am currently into. We then feed the kittens, and play outside for a little while. And then about an hour later, we start cookin' up what we like to call Second Breakfast. (We learned this from the Hobbits.) This is usually some mixture of vanilla yogurt, strawberries, toast, and the occasional scrambled egg.
By this time, although I am still clinging to my mug and the wonderful idea of my fresh, and now free (thank you, Starbucks) morning coffee, I am up and running, planning my day with excitement and in great anticipation of what Fall has on tap for us.
However, today, due to a sad, sad, stuffy-nosed boy and his very sleepy mama, all we managed to accomplish was some coloring and extremely low-key, practically slow motion playing.

At one point though, we did muster up the energy to boogie down to a new favorite song of ours from Norway (see picture of E above...he's boogie-ing), introduced to us by our dear cousin, Paige, who just happens to be studying in France. She is privvy to the hippest, hoppin'-est tunes in Europe, and she is not bashful about it. And as I am now a country mama who cannot make head nor tail of the September issue of Vogue, and who is so out of every loop of trendy clothing, and cool design, and fun music, that I used to fancy quite a bit, this is a major development. I am so grateful. As are my dancin' shoes.

I also had tutoring in the evening, which E loves, because I work with a young woman who lives on an amazing farm. During our time there, E gets to feed apples to horses, chase chickens, hold kittens, romp with puppies, point at and simultaneously scream at trucks and tractors, and play with some cool antique toy trucks that pretty much knock his little baby socks off. All the while, I get to help an awesome girl with her homeschooling. It's a win-win, even when we're tired and not in perfect health.
So that was Monday. Not too shabby, considering. And the nice thing about getting through one day with a cold, is that you're one day closer to feeling better. And hopefully one night closer to a more extended period of sweet sleep.....
Night' night' everyone. oxox

Monday, Part one.

Oh yes, you heard me right,... part one. Monday will be broken into parts, because this first part is worth recording, but was unplanned and not really a piece of our typical week.

So last night we ended up sleeping in the recliner. And by we, I mean Elias and I, and by sleeping I mean, wrestling and crying and whimpering for a seemingly unending amount of time. We had managed to stay healthy just long enough for me to forget how tortorous it is when we are not.

You see, E inherited from me, (and my poor, poor, mother can attest to this), a complete and intense impatience and intolerance for head congestion and/or coughing of any degree or severity. Upon the onset of a cold, sleep becomes something more of a kick-boxing match with stuffed animals or the bars on the crib, or say, his mother. We usually end up, as we did last night, in the recliner, where elevation somewhat helps, and that is where we linger well into the morning, mouths open, drool dripping down, a mess of limbs and blankets having tried so desperately and for so long to get comfortable that we have just given up and fallen asleep in possibly one of the most awkward, painful sleeping positions known to man. It's a real treat. And yet, even as I type that, hoping you'll read it in my seriously tired, sarcastic tone, you should know, that I do kind of love it, these moments where I'm the only one in the whole world that he wants to hold him and comfort him. As he inches his way closer and closer to turning two, everyday he claims more of his impending and inevitable independence. So these moments where I am still needed and cuddled with are indeed precious, but had you asked me about their value this morning at 5:12 am, the only word I could have uttered would have been, "coffee", in a very pitiful, helpless kind of whisper. (In the picture, I am trying to show you what I've recently discovered. These sleepless nights cause not so much "bags" under the eyes, as these sort of concave dips under each eye. It's really very flattering, and in just the right light, they cast a bit of a crater-ish shadow down into their sleepy depths. I am struggling to find a proper concealing method. Any thoughts?)

So E finally awoke for just long enough to say, "pee-oh", which contrary to what you might think, means, "pillow". I took him to his bed, where he still sleeps now, and instead of allowing myself to sit and stew over the age-old question, "Why, O, why can he sleep soundly in his own bed when the sun has risen, and not when the darkness is upon us?? WHY??", I have brewed the joe, and realised that I have just enough half and half for one beautiful cup of coffee. It's like a little morning miracle.

Love you all. Prepare for part two. ox.

It's Really October....

So that last post I had begun back on September 3rd, but I actually finished and posted it today, October 5th, just to avoid confusion as I begin the aforementioned project. For some reason blogger wouldn't allow me to change the date. See you tomorrow.

A Week in the Life: The Lemay Edition

Whew!! I look at that last post, written from the edge of vacationland, looking down the road into the forseen, extreme, non-vacationland, and I can conjure up those same emotions all over again. But with the summer distancing herself from us more and more with each passing chilly morning, I am rising from ashes of espresso grounds, and appearing to you now, through a puff of powdered sugar smoke.

In the last few weeks I dove headfirst into a new job at Starbucks, made several cakes for weddings and birthdays and anniversaries, began a part-time tutoring job, and continued the unending and mostly amazing saga that is motherhood.

I apologize, again, for how I have been dragging my feet through blogland. I stop by daily to read the blogs I love, but leave without writing anything of my own, usually however it is because I am leaping across the room to stop a certain toddler from tossing a dvd as if it were a frisbee, (or insert your own toddlerish mischief here), etc...

However, I have been inspired by a fellow blogger (http://aliedwards.typepad.com/_a_/2008/09/weekend-creat-3.html) to do a little project this week that will hopefully get the blog up and running again. Starting tomorrow I will be documenting a week in our life, Monday to Sunday. So much is happening everyday. Elias is talking and playing and being HILARIOUS, (and eating WHOLE apples, and playing swords with sticks, and diving head first down steep hills at state parks....eeeek! I'll show you the aftermath), and it really needs to be documented. Who will do it, if I don't get up off my crazed, lazed arse?

So as they say, "ready, steady,....GO!"

(Oh, and here are some of the promised pictures from the absolutely wonderful August, Invasion of the Inlaws...Okay so I cannot figure out how to get the pictures to come to the bottom of the post. So there they are, up there....E saying goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa. It was so sad. He cried. For a long time...E and Grandma Bev looking at the polar bears at the zoo, the giraffes, and E wearing Grandpa Bob's shoes. He also started calling Grandpa Bob 'Pop-pop' while they were here. Tremendously cute.)

The Moody Blues....and not the band.

It's Monday, and it shows. Despite this absolutely un-August-y, completely lovely fall-ish weather we're having, and despite the fact that my most favorite summer sound ever, that perfectly high-pitched chirp that the crickets make late in the season, is filling the air with sweet music, and even despite the rare and wonderful lavendar scented bath I got to take while Eli napped, I have a sinking feeling.

You see, last week my in-laws were here from Canada. And I am crazy for them. Ever since my husband and I dated, they have welcomed me into their lives like an adopted child. It's not often that I laugh so hard, as I do when we are all together. And now with Eli here, everything seems to have so much more meaning, and the memories created are so sweet.

So, we had a wonderful week, which I will tell you all about in detail soon, but for now I will just say that the reality of life as usual has set in. Partly, because I have to head back to work tonight, as well as bake a giant wedding cake that I am a little nervous about. But also partly because whenever I get the privilege of spending quality time with my family who live so far away, I am forced to remember that when the vacation ends, we will not see them again for months. And with Eli growing and becoming more aware of people and his relationship to them, it's so much harder to say goodbye. Now it's not just me and Grandma Bev who cry upon departure, it's me and Grandma Bev, AND Eli. It's heart-wrenching to say the least.

There are far worse things than a bummer of a Monday, and our blessings far outweigh any disappointments in this life. And like so many times before, the sinking feeling will pass, and everything will be, of course, fine. But I thought I would post a happy picture to brighten my Monday, and yours. oxox

This is kind of unEli related, but I was wondering if I could get some feedback on this scarf I am making.....Thank you kindly.

ox

Tropical Storm Eli

Not quite hurricane strength, yet I would say some fairly powerful Eli force winds were blowing in our home this morning. I don't know what gets into him. He ate the same cereal and raisins breakfast that he requests every morning. He has started to say, (which is something more like a raspy, yet absolutely adorable, morning shout,) "o's!" and "rainins!" upon waking, paired with his sign for milk so that he is sure to cover all his breakfast bases.

Many mornings he just walks down the hall and promptly begins pushing trucks and making that noise that boys seem to just inherently have nestled into their brains and vocal chords from birth. From the very miniature matchbox trucks to the very un-miniature tonka truck he will drive them on any and every surface, for hours, if I will let him, only stopping for meals and the occasional glance at Handy Manny.

But not today. Today he awoke with a mission to accomplish: to undo. Laundry in a basket awaiting folding from a procrastinating mama,...became a ground covering of wrinkled fabric, fit, he thought, for a dance floor, or a platform for jumping and spinning. Books, sitting innocently on the bookshelf, waiting patiently to be chosen for quiet, colorful, educational reading time,...are suddenly in a pile on the floor, and not, unfortunately, from a ravenous reading party. Blocks, meant for building and sorting,...well, you get the picture.

And as quickly as I can tidy up, he is darting from his time-out rug, (or naughty spot, as I like to say with my silly english accent voice,...wait, maybe that's why he doesn't take it seriously...) to make the next mess. And the absolute best part is that he puts himself back in time-out after each mini rebellion, because he knows. I don't know any tropical storms that are that smart.

Awake Baby

Okay, so he woke up about two seconds after that last post, but I have to say his waking was equally as delightful as his sleeping.

Swimming Baby All Day Equals Sleeping Baby All Night

It is nearly 8:30 am and e is still sleeping. And my coffee has brewed, and I have poured myself a mug of it with the exact amounts of cream and sugar that are ideal to my taste buds. And I am sitting on my couch, the news is on, (oh, I hope i'm not jinxing this,) the computer is working, and aside from the giant pile of clean laundry that needs folded, I am actually, literally, squealing with delight. (If you know my son, you know that since the womb he has been getting up at around 5:30 or 6 am.) But I think this is what happens the morning after you take a toddler to a swimming pool for the first time. If woman could give birth to fish, I would say that I had one.
ox

Picking Cherries and Chasing Babies

In case any of you were wondering the best way to distract a one year-old while you climb a very tall ladder that is propped up on, I don't know, let's say, a few twigs, so that you can pick some beautiful cherries for a pending pie that you will hopefully sell (or secretly equally as hopefully not sell, so you can eat it) at the farmer's market this weekend,...well, you strip him naked and place him in a variable garden of eden, equipped with fresh fruits, soft green grass, a baby pool, and of course, trucks. Essentially, taking the baby back to his earliest ancestral roots, minus the baby pool and trucks. It was amazing. Like a giant organic play pen, of sorts. Now, this is not to say that at some point the baby didn't take notice of the extremely tall and exceptionally dangerous ladder, and try to climb it whilst his wobbly mama calmly and repeatedly begged him, from the ladder's tipity top, to get down.

However, this is precisely why we mama's must travel in packs. (My good friend Becky and I are lucky enough to have had our sons, our first borns, only 2 months apart. And this is a story for another blog day, but I will quickly interject that I was in the delivery room with Becky while I was nearly 8 mos. pregnant. I am still unsure if it more prepared me or completely scared the living daylights out of me. (Okay what on earth are my living daylights?!?! I have no idea where that saying came from...(can you put parenthesis inside parenthesis?)) A family type buddy system. We were two mamas and two one year-olds, which made us an unstoppable cherry picking, baby chasing force. One mama picking, while one chases, and then trade. Hilarious fun.

And this was all thanks to Becky's parents and their beautiful yard and completely lovely cherry tree. However, I will say, that it seems the cherries desire to be elusive, (if a cherry could indeed be desirous) hanging in delicious, picture perfect bunches, just out of our reach in almost every direction. You see, cherries like the sun, as do most growing, unpicked fruits I am told, and the sun apparently likes to shine from high in the sky. Thusly, the reddest, most delightfully plump cherries can be found in the highest recesses of the tree's limbs. Ideal for the cherries, not for the pickers. But somehow, and without breaking a single ladder climbing bone, we triumphed. It was a beautiful day, and we managed to get enough cherries for a few pies and some adorable "tartlets" (what becky called her insanely cute mini tarts), which did indeed sell at the farmer's market just two days later.

Regretfully Yours,...

And the Laziest, Rudest, Most Complacent (non-)Blogger Award goes to.....

I'll bet you can guess.

My deepest and most regretful apologies to you all. In all the craziness of life, and what with all of my other online obsessions, (i.e. Facebook and emailing and instant messaging far away friends, flittering about looking for recipes and solutions to all my problems, googling "chickenpox" to see if the strange rash all over Eli's bum and feet is what I think it is, but later finding that it is actually probably an equally as scary problem called hand, foot, and mouth disease, photoshopping my face onto the bodies of celebrities to see what my hair would look like, you know the obvious things one does online....) I have let my blogging, well, go extinct. I was on a roll there for a few months, but sadly, my momentum faded drastically, and I wish that I could say it won't happen again. However, I am going to put forth an effort, not just to blog again, but to try and recap all that we have missed. And then move forward from there. Most of you have seen Eli several times since I last wrote, but for those of you who haven't, he is now a giant. Not a baby, but a boy. A tall boy, who says "ummm, no!" and "yup" (a.k.a. yes ) in correct context when asked a question. For example, if I say, "Elias, would you like to have chopped livers for dinner?" He now knows to answer that question quickly and clearly, "ummm, NO!"

And if I ask, "Eli, would you like to have a sip of mommy's delicious cherry slushie, he responds with a very enthusiastic, "yup!", but in a kind of country boy accent that he doesn't use when he says any other words.

Other words in his repertoire are "mom!!!!" (most often yelled in the early morning hours), "dad", "mine!" (we have Grandma Bev to thank for that one), "up", "down", "out", "shoes", "choo, choo", "huhwoe" (a..k.a. hello), "bye, bye", "tank too" (which I'm sure you realize is, thank you), "wee wee" (which shockingly means please, and could also be misconstrued for oui, oui, which would be cute since he is half a frenchman), "duck" (which usually means truck, but often times does actually mean duck), "dog", and "dig" (which is pig). There are several other words in the works, but we are not quite sure exactly what is being said.

He is a boy who just recently turned 18 mos. old. He runs, he stomps, he climbs, he opens things, he dances, he takes huge bites out of apples, and he plays cars and trucks like you wouldn't believe. He loves to play with his trucks so much, and I believe it's actually just the wheels he's after, that he'll do so up until the final seconds before he has to go to bed, lying on the floor, exhausted from a long day of playing, pushing the truck forward and back, forward and back. It is a desperate attempt to keep the day from ending and it is extremely cute.

Since last blog, he has grown teeth. Four up top, three down below and one molar kind of halfway in. He has decided he is passionate about strawberries. He still loves milk, and oh, I hope his pediatrician isn't reading this, he still loves (and I mean l-o-v-e-s) his bottle. He likes spaghetti best of all the foods we have tried, which, may I say, is quite a lot, and you might suppose if you didn't know any better that he was indeed, Italian.

And just now he opened up his book called, "I Love Animals", pointed to the owl and said, "hoo, hoo!" I'm telling you, he's a genius. Okay, I'm mostly kidding there, but we have not covered owls yet. He also seems to have a crazily keen sense of hearing, as he can hear a train that is three miles or more from our house, sometimes before Jeff and I even hear it, and he shouts exasperatingly, "choo, choo!", with such intensity that you think he might lose his breath and pass out.

So speaking of which, the boy has awakened from the blessed naptime. And I have showered, eaten, swept up breadcrumbs (that E somehow pulled down from the kitchen counter, opened even though it was a brand new container, and poured out onto the tiles, then resembling something like sand on the beach,.... well, sand on the beach sprinkled with italian seasoning), made iced coffee, and blogged. I'll leave you with a picture of Elias the Spaghetti Lover sitting in his highchair reveling in the glory of a spaghetti dinner demolished.

Until next time (which will hopefully be in a few days, not a few years),

Megan