Update on the cats, and something else to add to the list.

If you follow me on facebook you probably saw this morning that 1) I am looking for new cloth diapers for the children [You can see my Pinterest board on the cloth diaper choices here]and 2) There was a horrific...I mean horrific poo situation this morning.  I cannot explain it to you.  S had to go to another room it was so bad.  I had to wash my arms.  It was...oh heavens.

I'm in love with these ones:

Kawaii Ultra Soft Cross-Over Square Tab:  $6.99 each or 24 for $129.90

Kawaii One Size Snazzy Minky:  $7.75 each or 12 for $89.90

Both of these Kawaii options are pretty low-cost, and they have everything on my lists of 'diaper needs', which includes adjustable sizing, snaps instead of aplix fasteners, fleece outers and inners and pocket options.

But then, I also like these ones:

Lollidoos Eco-Pocket diaper

The Lollidoos are, if it isn't too hipster to say this, a beautiful diaper.  They look very soft, very sturdy and durable, and they come in two weights of fleece that would probably easily cover diapering needs for a long time.  They also adjust via an inner elastic system.  And while I really really like them, they retail at about $32 for the heavy fleece diapers, and I found a sale on the lighter fleece diapers - those are on for about $18.50 right now.  Yes, that's per diaper.  One diaper.  Ack.

News on the cat front - I brought them both to the vet yesterday and he was as uncertain as I had been.  They didn't have any traces of blood on their *ahem* nether bits, and they are eating and drinking and playing and interacting in a normal way.  Their respective temperatures were normal, which meant that if we are dealing with an infection, it is minor.  There also weren't signs of bumps or anything that would indicate tumors, etc.  We decided to forego the antibiotics right now, and instead switch them back to the expensive urinary tract health cat food that I really had hoped was behind us.  This might be a urinary tract infection, or possibly pre-crystals.  I tend to think the later since we've dealt with crystals with one of them before.

I hope it works, because I like my cats.

Cats, Cars and the Country

The cats' little 'bathroom problem' has come to a head now, unfortunately, and so I've sucked it up and made a vet's appointment for each of them, since it's almost impossible to tell which one is having the issues.  It's going to cost at least $51 for the first examination, and then some unknown amount that the receptionist thinks will be less than that for the second examination.  I'm not looking forward to spending the money that we really don't want to spend - but it will put everyone's mind at ease to know that whatever is causing these issues is resolved.

The appointment is tomorrow afternoon, so if you feel like praying for my cats' digestive tracts, that would be great.

Also on the list of things that we really DON'T want to spend money on is driver's training for David.  The best quote is $595 for classroom instruction and road time, but the next class is at the end of June, when David is supposed to be taking two classes through the denomination to maintain his ministry license.  I'm really frustrated about this - because the driver's training people have told us that he can't drive their car until he finishes the classroom work, but that's at the end of July.  The very nice lady on the phone informed me that the driving portion will be at LEAST a couple of months worth of time since we live in a 'busy' area.  What all of this boils down to is the following options:

1)  David doesn't go to his ministry courses at the end of June, but instead takes the classroom portion of the driver's training.  He then spends the next two months of the summer working his driving portions around shift work and hoping that he gets good enough to 'pick it up quickly' and take the actual driving test.

2)  David goes to his ministry courses, and then takes the next classroom portion, which is at the end of July.  Then he has a month less time to fit in all of the driving portions, and based on what I was told this morning, it seems really unlikely that he would be able to get all the hours in within a month AND take the test.

3)  We skip driver's ed altogether and David works with a licensed driver on his own to get comfortable behind the wheel of a car and organizes his own driving test for the end of the summer.

4)  Some other option I can't think of yet.

The other driving school in the area isn't returning our calls, so so far these are the only options I can think of.

Ok, Amy, enough complaining.

Seven Quick Takes in less than 10 minutes.

10:48 pm

I'm exhausted, but I didn't post yesterday and I told myself I would - so now I super duper have to post something (anything at all!) today.  Seven Quick Takes, don't fail me now.

1.  We've started going to see David at work more and more in the evenings.  Partly it just nicely finishes a circular walk for me and my minions, but it also coincides with crazy time.  'Bout 4pm around here.  David seems to lurve the visits deeply, and who wouldn't want to see their flustered yelly wife dragging two hysterical toddlers into their place of employment?

2.  This afternoon I spent hours and hours and HOURS scrubbing the basement floor.  It was that dirty.  I'm revolting, is I guess what you can take away from this.  The floor needs to be repainted so the cleaning had to happen.  Also, my cats pee. 

3.  Family decision time happened the other day when we realized that our love of giant tupperware storage containers knew no bounds - we're going to get rid of all of our cardboard boxes in the basement and switch to big totes.  I know, I know, this is the most exciting thing you've heard all week.

4.  Clara is climbing those stairs way faster than I wanted her to.  Which means I have to face the frustration of The Gate.  We bought this bloody gate when Samuel became mobile and I've hated it passionately ever since.  I don't know if it's defective or I am, but the thing won't open without significant cussing and thrashing.  And it's supposed to be attached to the wall, which I failed to figure out how to do properly in the old place, and will likely also fail to figure out here.  Agggh.

5.  If you remember to add her to your prayers, there is a sweet local girl who just had her second child at only 28 weeks.  She has an eleven month old at home.  Please pray.

6.  Links!  This article almost made me cry.

7.  Tomorrow I agreed to go grocery shopping with my friend at 8am.  I must be crazy.

10:58 pm

Check out Jen for more Seven Quick Takes

What we're reading these days

In the last few weeks I've seen a lot of changes and milestones come along in regards to C's development.  Some surprising (climbing the entire staircase without either David or I noticing) some unpleasant (Don't like what's for supper?  Throw it on the floor.)  and some that I am eager for and very happy about - like reading.  C has finally started showing an interest in books; she has her favourites, too.

The very best book in the entire universe according to C is this one.  I thought it would be too busy for her, because of all the small little pictures on each page, but she loves it.

I'm so happy that she decided to like Goodnight Moon, which is also a favourite of S's.

This one is part of a series of books, all similar in layout with thick flaps to lift.  She's entranced by the flaps.

S is focusing heavily on Robert Munsch books.  Every night we read stories again and again, and often throughout the day as well.  He seems to have put aside all of his other books in order to focus entirely on Munsch.

And what am I reading?  Mostly Barbara Pym.  I'm stuck in that sort of rut where you know exactly what it is you want to read, but have no way to figuring out how to find it.  Perhaps you can help me?  Or maybe you shouldn't, because there is enough stuff I should be doing without adding books to the list.  I have A Year of Biblical Womanhood on hold at the library, and when it comes in I won't be doing any housework for a day or two, so I may as well focus now.



Childhood accoutrements that I detest and also curtains.

Hung curtains in the dining room today, only what..seven months after we moved in?  Decorating win right there.  This is what they look like:

Which is to say, they look like beige curtains.  They used to hang in our livingroom in the old apartment and I couldn't find them anywhere after we moved.  I figured they had been folded up and put in a box marked with something like Baby Boy Clothes 0-3 Months or maybe Spare Lampshades, but they turned out to be in the top drawer of a dresser we never use in the spare bedroom. I think they make the dining room a bit less stark, though.  I harbour a deep desire to throw away everything I own and live in a white box so actually adding something to a room is a big step for me.

Also dragged the squeaky rocking chair outside, washed it and sprayed it liberally with WD40.  The problem with this method is, of course, that WD40 is toxic, and so I have to let it dry and then wipe off all of the chair parts again.  But if it gets rid of the blasted squeak I think it'll be worth it.

And I finally picked up a phone - which is good.  I mean, I don't like shopping, going out in public, making decisions, choosing housewares or being away from my family - but the phone itself was a needed purchase.

I'm thinking of starting a list of child-oriented products these days that I abhor.  Topping the list would have to be the people hired to provide voices for the majority of the characters on Bob The Builder.  Specifically Scrambler the ATV and Mrs. Potts.  I'm just saying.  Oh, and Junior Asparagus from Veggie Tales.  The high pitched squeaky childishness monotone of them just...grates on me.

On the other hand, we've been watching The Magic Schoolbus a lot recently, and I'm so happy to find a show that has some intelligence in it.  And also a show I don't mind sitting and watching myself if needed.  So far I'm liking that one, Arthur, Franklin and Charlie & Lola.  It just occured to me as I was typing that the last three all feature a young boy as the central character.  Maybe I don't hate children's programming, maybe I hate girl's programming.  Ok, that makes me feel much less like a big old ogre.

Alright, off you go to read something more productive while I consume vast quantities of bread.  Ciao.

Some complaining and lots of pictures from my garden.

Even though it was rainy as all get out today - damp, gross and cloudy, I still pulled out the MMM card (Mean Mother Moment) and forced everyone outside for 30 minutes, during which time C soaked herself thoroughly and acquired suspicious dirt marks around her mouth, and S learned how to use the dandelion puller.



Dandelion puller extraordinaire.

Proof that I do wear shoes and am not just a crazy hippy.

My hostas are growing at a furious pace.

It's been a rougher-than-usual week, and I'm a firm believer in the power of fresh air.  Fortunately, no one is physically sick right now, but so many many things have been going on around here recently that I just feel overwhelmed.

Today, for example, has brought with it the challenge of a difficult conversation.  My very worst kind of conversation - one that is going to result in someone being disappointed in me.  Whenever these come up, and they do with some frequency because I'm a sensitive person, I've always tended to leap before I look in terms of talking.  I freak out.  I panic.  I am overwhelmed with the smallest thing on my plate.  I forget to make meals.  I cry a lot.  I fall to pieces.  I think we can all agree that God knew what he was doing when he didn't make me a fighter pilot.  But today, before the conversation occurred, I happened to read Jen's piece on handling that kind of crazy and making a good decision.  And as I made my way down her list it occured to me that nope, I hadn't prayed about it.  So I did right then.  And nope, I hadn't spoken to my husband about this stressor, and so I immediately called him at work and quickly gave him the low-down.  I felt better just doing those things, and I also felt that, although my decision was going to remain the same, I was now not spiraling out of control.

Of course, then I promptly lost the opportunity to actually HAVE said conversation, which means I have to wait until tomorrow, which gives me an entire evening to worry.

The list of things around the house that are going to require money to fix is growing.  Way too fast.  It's like broken stuff is sprouting as quickly as the weeds on my lawn.  Remember the "phone situation"?  Several months ago one of our cordless phones bit the dust, but we kept it around because the answering machine part still worked.  Then the second phone started dying, but the call display on that one still worked so we kept it as well.  Then the answering machine died.  Then the caller display died and I had to drag out the 'don't use it until we really have to' corded phone.  Yeah - we're still using that.  Our stroller woes are also still not resolved.  We have four strollers - all of which are steadily becoming unusable for a variety of reasons that are all too boring even for me to type out.  Add a stroller to the list.  We had to buy C a new carseat because she outgrew her bucket seat.  One of the blinds on our bedroom windows has broken, and the other one isn't far behind; I'd like to switch to curtains anyway, but now we can add two curtain rods to the list.  It goes on and on ad nauseum.

The cats.  The cats are still passing a bit of blood.  I've tried switching them to soft food, which seemed to make a little bit of difference, but not enough.  We've dewormed them twice, just in case it was that - it isn't.  Our next step is to switch to a digestive health type food and hope that helps.  I'd also like to start adding a hairball medication to their regime.  I can't even handle the thought that they will need to visit a vet - we can't afford a vet.  They seem to be eating and drinking, playing and using the litter box fine.  They aren't crying or acting at all strange or losing weight...so I'm telling myself that they have something mild like a scratch, because if it's anything more than that, well, there's almost nothing we can do about it.

Left to right:  lettuce, spinach, kale, brussels sprouts

Left to right:  beets, kale.

Our computer is reaching the end of its life as well.  Bits of it keep malfunctioning and we keep patching it up.  The monitor died about six months ago and we bought a refurbished one, and now that one is dying as well.  The mouse died, and a friend gave me another to replace it, and that one is now reaching the end of its life.  We have already replaced the dvd player, which S broke, and then had a friend of ours clean up the hard drive to make the old machine faster.  I think we've done what we can - our next step is probably saving everything to a thumb drive and wiping the hard drive clean, reloading the programs we use, and seeing if that will last us another couple of years.

TWO major kitchen appliances (for me, at least) are starting to go awry - the bread machine and the slow cooker.  Now, the bread machine I could take or leave, but the slow cooker...I can't live without the slow cooker.  So far the dial has snapped off the front (you can still turn it on, it just takes a lot more determination) and the actual cooker portion, not the ceramic insert, is starting to look worn.  There are stains inside I can't clean anymore, the handles are getting loose, that sort of thing.  I hope we have a little while left with it.


Technically the first meal made with garden ingredients - sprinkled chives.

The list goes on and on and on.  It's a season of life, I know, but it's a really crummy season.

Sunday

Singing the Sunday solo again my friends.  David worked from 7-3, which means he left the house at 6:25 and got home around 3:30.  Which further means that I dealt with church all by my lonesome - and today I was upstairs helping with the Sunday school crowd.

Let's recap:

Multiple time outs.  No one wanted breakfast.  Long walk.  Tired me.  Heard nothing of the service.  Off to small group.  Everyone cried.  Home again.

There.  Now it's like you lived it with me.

Falafel and french fries for supper.  Children cried until I just put them to bed.  Tomorrow may or may not have a playdate in it - the one thing I can say for certain will be present is fish, because it is essentially some of the only meat present in the house and all of the stores are closed tomorrow.  I'm thinking a big feed of pancakes for one of the two *bigger* meals, and then fish and....something...for the other.  Every time I look in the fridge I get depressed.  I'm going to have to actually meal plan this coming week.

So...even more cloth diapers are heading out from our rotation.  My six Bummis super whisper wraps are officially too small for little miss chubby, so we're cutting those out of circulation.  She's slowly outgrowing every diaper I have for her.  Right now there are pretty much five Bummis super lites, a Nubunz, an AMP and a Rumperooz cover that still fit.  I have some one size covers that I tend to use on S, but could adjust for C, but other than that - my cloth diaper stash is getting quite low.

Saturday Quick Takes

I started writing on Friday, I really really did...

1.  Yesterday I cooked a chicken.  It was a small chicken, granted, but it was still an entire chicken.  As of 3pm this afternoon, there is no more chicken.  Now, I know the children didn't eat the chicken, and David didn't eat the chicken...which means that in 24 hours I ate an entire chicken.  My poor limping-towards-middle-age metabolism can't manage too many more 'hungry enough to eat a chicken' days.

2.  Look at the beautiful candles!  I SAID LOOK AT THEM.  They took me, like, ten minutes to light.  Because I'm an idiot and bought waterproof matches, which is essentially the same thing as saying 'matches that are safe in the rain since hey, they ain't going to go up in flame fo' NObody'.  At one point I was rubbing the match on the side of my cheese grater, desperately looking around for something rough in my kitchen.

3.  It was such a not-fantastic start to the day that David and I decided to take the children to the farmer's market to cheer everyone up.  Which might have worked, had it not been incredibly, bitterly cold outside.

4.  But there were balloon animals there!

5.  And we bought a large serving of pad thai to share, and then the children hunched over it like rabid dogs and ate so much that I had to come home and console myself with the remainder of the chicken.

6.  I have to share this, if only because I feel like it provides visual proof to my lazier self that I DO do things around the house, and I CAN accomplish large and overwhelming tasks.  I actually rotated half of the children's closet yesterday.  Clara's summer clothes were brought up from storage and hung up, and then I'm trying something new and putting the next season's digs in the room as well.  The folded clothing on top of the closet is long-sleeved fall and winter girl's shirts and long winter pajamas.  Fall/winter pants and the rest of the shirts are in a drawer in the bureau.  The bottom two drawers of that plastic storage dresser you see in the closet are dresses and jumpers, and zip-up sweaters and other heavier tops.  Jackets are being stored downstairs in a big outerwear tub until I can figure out what I'm going to do with them.

Saturday I'm going to do Samuel's wardrobe.  You can really tell looking at the picture that Clara's side is done.

7.  I've been trying to figure out who this little lady is.  She visited my yard and my neighbour's yesterday, picked a bit around on the ground under where our birdfeeder used to hang, and then sat nicely with her back to me for a picture.  She's a she, I'm pretty certain of it; a grey almost pigeon sized lady with a red spash on the back of her head.  I think she's a female woodpecker, because I saw her fly up the telephone pole and cling as her kind are wont to do.  Any ideas?

Linking up with Jen at Conversion Diary!