The road to recovery

Knock on wood, but I think we’re past the worst of it.

Elijah’s certainly back to his old self (which is nice, since it’s virtually impossible to get him to swallow a whole dose of his antibiotics for his ear infection), and Charlie had a great afternoon, although she was still running  a fever this morning.  I’m on the mend, too – I’ve had the same bug as Charlie, with less fever and more stomach pain.

 William is mostly fine, although he had some unexplained crying this afternoon – I’m hoping he was just tired/cranky, and not in pain… It would be so nice if he could TELL me what he’s going through!  He’s getting new words everyday, though – today he said ‘baby’ for the first time.

With everybody sick (and my husband putting the finishing touches on his MA thesis – he submitted it this morning. Hooray!), we spent the past 48 hours parked in front of the TV.  Since the Olympics are over, CBC has returned with its morning kids’ TV shows, and we filled in the rest of the day with ridiculous amounts of Dora the Explorer.  I’d forgotten just how shrieky Dora’s voice gets, not to mention the inanity of the songs: “I’m the map, I’m the map, I’m the map, I’m the map, I’m the …. MAP!” The kids love it, though, and when they’re feeling crummy, TV keeps us all sane and calm.

Just before she got sick this week, I brought Charlie to a nearby salon for her first haircut EVER – it was a little sad to see all the wispy curls get trimmed away, but she looks really cute (although it’s not looking much tidier here):

None of the kids have been eating much this week, but tonight, Elijah seemed to regain his appetite.  First, he climbed onto my chair, carefully picked up my knife and fork, and sampled my dinner:

Then, after he’d finished his own supper, he decided he needed more applesauce:

And of course, William thought this looked like a good idea (monkey see, monkey do):

What a good mother I am, taking pictures instead of removing my toddlers from the table!

The house of sickness

No pictures today.  We’re all getting sick!

Both boys have ear infections (Elijah was diagnosed on Monday), and they’re each on varying dosages of the same antibiotics.  Eli seems to be on the mend, since I think we caught his infection earlier than his brother’s – William continues to be cranky, and by the end of each day, he’s running a fever.  We are going through a LOT of Tylenol and Motrin.

Charlie seemed to be doing fine, but at dinner tonight, she complained of being tired, didn’t eat much, then asked to be excused and put herself to bed – sure enough, when we checked on her, she had a fever too.  

All three kids are currently sleeping, and we’re hoping they have a decent night… Elijah skipped his nap today, and William has been having bad nights since the ear infection peaked on Saturday. 

My abdominal pains seem to be disappearing – or at least lessening – so even if I don’t know what’s been causing them, I’m quite happy to be rid of them!  I’m sniffling away as I type, though, having caught a cold. 

At least my husband is still healthy… and he says that he’s only 24 hours away from submitting his M.A. thesis! So that’s one bright, shining piece of good news for us.

The curse of the erupting molars…

Apparently, some infants get their teeth without any symptoms at all – no crankiness, no sleep problems, nada.  My children, unfortunately, are on the other end of the spectrum.  We get it all: fevers, misery, suffering.  Elijah and William are currently (albeit excruciatingly slowly) getting their final set of molars, and as a result, Will’s got an ear infection.  

Here’s our poor suffering guy, sitting on his Daddy’s lap and getting a dose of Tylenol.  Note his brother Eli, who’s begging to have a taste of that sweet, sweet medication:

William has been running a fever for a couple of days, and it occurred to me yesterday, right after he vomited all over himself and me, that it might be his ears… Every time the boys get another ‘group’ of teeth (incisors, canines, molars, whatever), one of them ends up with an ear infection.  I know that this is reasonably common for toddlers, but it’s weird how only one of the twins ends up with the infection – they’re both getting the teeth, after all.  Strangely, though, their teeth have emerged in two completely different patterns – not what I expected from identical twins.

So Will’s on antibiotics (which he hates! Oh no!), and hopefully he’ll be feeling better by tomorrow afternoon, but I’m anticipating a bad night for him tonight – he woke up crying three times during his NAP today, which is a bad sign.  At least we have infant tylenol on hand, to help us all get through the night.

Charlie and Elijah have been stuck in the house with poor feverish William, but they’ve made the best of it.  Here they are playing their favorite game: “Climb into William’s crib and jump all over each other”:

Otherwise, no big news… we’ve had stinking hot weather for the last few days (such terrible timing for Will to have a fever!), but Charlie and I still got out to the community garden this morning, which is always a good time.  William has been saying ‘car’ (which seems to apply to anything with wheels), and both boys are enjoying imitating animal sounds – Eli can ‘neigh’, Will can give a strangled ‘moo’, and each of them has their own version of ‘quack, quack’.  They’re also both into blowing kisses, which they send out to loved ones and strangers alike.  

Charlie’s desperately keen to start school, and we have to keep explaining that the teachers and other kids aren’t actually there yet, so she’s not missing anything.  I’ve been assembling and labeling all her required school supplies, which is feeding into her excitement.  This is actually a huge task, since her school asks us to purchase very specific amounts and types of markers, exercise books, pencils  etc. – and to make this extra challenging, the list includes some items which are literally IMPOSSIBLE to purchase (ie Crayola ‘Pastel’ markers, which the company NO LONGER MANUFACTURES!)…  I searched through several stores before a helpful young store clerk informed me that this particular list is notoriously out of date.  Once we’ve acquired everything on the list, we have to label, with her full name, every single individual marker, pencil, glue stick, etc.  We’re talking about dozens and dozens of items – I’m glad I didn’t leave this job for the night before school starts!

Back in Montreal!

We’re back home now from our trip.  We spent a wonderful few days with my parents-in-law, and luckily the sun finally decided to shine down on us – we were all going stir-crazy with the daily thunderstorms in Guelph.  Here are my two monkeys enjoying the sprinkler in Grandmaman and Grampa’s backyard:

We spent a lovely couple of days being spoiled by my parents-in-law, then drove back to Montreal on Friday through a whole string of thunderstorms, just to keep us on our toes. Fun fun.

While we were staying with my in-laws, we went on various shopping expeditions to buy Charlie’s school uniform (white on top, navy bottoms), some new ‘back-to-school’ clothes for my husband (hey, PhD candidates are students too!) and some ‘professional’ clothes for me, for my anticipated return to work this fall.

That’s the big news, actually – I had a job interview today (which went really, really well), another one on Thursday, and another one next Wednesday!  I feel so in demand!  They’re all for resource-type positions, working with struggling  elementary students to help improve their literacy skills, which is pretty much what I did at my last job, back in Halifax.  It felt very strange to get dressed up in my ‘interview outfit’ this afternoon (picked out by my very helpful sister-in-law: thanks, Natasha!) and meet with a potential colleague/mentor.  

I’m excited for these interviews, but it’s definitely stressful to be diving back into the world of gainful employment, especially since my kids are still around home for another 2 weeks!  I’m hoping that I can parlay these meetings into some interesting (and lucrative!) part-time work, so that I have some time left over for writing.  We shall see!

My husband is super stressed-out these days too, as he finishes his Master’s thesis… just in time to start his PhD in September.  No break for him!  The kids are cheerful and rambunctious as always – Charlie is reading more and more (she read me most of ‘Mama’s Bed’, by Jo-Ellen Bogart [my friend Jill’s mom, but also a big Canadian children’s author] the other evening at bedtime. I was SO impressed).  The boys are fascinated with numbers, and both like to pretend to be counting various toys, food items, etc.  

Still no more info on my medical mystery, but I’ve got a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, so I’m hoping we can make some progress on figuring out what’s causing my pain.  Charlie’s got an appointment too, and she’s getting her latest vaccination – she’s tough, though. She never cries when she gets a flu shot, and she usually watches the nurse give her the injection, which even I can’t do!  As long as she gets a fancy band-aid after the shot, she’s willing to be brave.

Edited to add one more cute photo: Here are all 3 kids, enjoying a wagon ride home to Grandma’s house after playing in Exhibition Park.  They adored the chance to ride together, although I kept worrying that one (or more!) would attempt an escape while the wagon was moving… As it turned out, our only injury happened when Charlie fell out of a stationary wagon parked in the driveway; so typical.

More pictures next time, I promise!

Guelph visits with family and old friends

We’ve been in Guelph, my hometown, since the fifth of August – this was our 8th wedding anniversary, but we followed our family tradition of being too exhausted by our kids to celebrate our marriage. Maybe by the time we hit 10 years, we’ll be efficient and organized enough for a night out?

We’ve been doing lots of visiting since we arrived in Guelph, since many of my old friends still have ties to the city, and we managed to coordinate our visits this summer. We met up with my husband’s cousin Christine and her family at her dad’s house in town, which luckily for us is highly baby-proofed. Christine’s elder daughter Ellie is a couple of months older than Charlie, and her younger daughter Claire is exactly 2 years younger than her big sister. Here’s a shot of the kids taking advantage of the big stash of Discovery toys at the house:

It was a beautiful day, so we walked over to a nearby park and let the children use up some of their energy on the playground equipment:

By the time we walked back to the house at lunchtime, Charlie and Ellie were the best of friends:

On Thursday, we spent the day with my friend Jill and her son Milo, who’s 6 months older than our boys. We hung out in the fantastic kid’s section at the Guelph library, then reconvened at my parents’ house for lunch. Here’s a delighted Milo petting Biscuit, my parents’ 20-year-old cat:

William and Milo also bonded over a shared love of toy trucks and cars. Here’s Milo imparting his wisdom to an enraptured Will:

Yesterday, we braved the sketchy weather and went to Riverside Park, where we met up with our friends, sisters Miriam and Leah, and their kids. Leah lived in Halifax while we were in Nova Scotia, and her daughter Luka is probably Charlie’s oldest friend. Here are the two girls, catching up while they ride the miniature train around the park:

The younger kids enjoyed the train ride, too; here’s Miriam holding 9-month-old Emma, Leah with 18-month-old Malin, and me with William:

After the train ride, we hopped on the old-fashioned wooden carousel, which is exactly the same as it was 30 years ago, when I used to ride it with my family! Here’s Charlie on her horse:

Elijah (with my husband) and William were also delighted with their ride on the carousel, although Will got a little nervous (or motion sick) as the ride progressed, and had to sit down on a bench with me for a cuddle:

We’ll be in Guelph for another few days, then we’re off to Unionville to spent some more time with my parents-in-law. Stay tuned for lots more photos and videos to come!

Cottage weekend

 We started our trip to Ontario at my parents-in-laws’ cottage in the Kawarthas, as they host a family gathering on the August long weekend every summer.  It was a smallish group this year (only 18 people) – here we are on the cottage steps:

The weather was not particularly cooperative, but we did have one decent day when we all swam and spent time on the lake.  Here’s my husband, waterskiing for the first time in at least 10 years:

Most of the weekend was spent inside attempting to stay warm and avoid mosquitoes.  Fortunately, my in-laws have a Wii entertainment system, and all three generations of the family got to play virtual tennis and golf.  Charlie did pretty well at tennis, but I was especially impressed when Elijah attempted to join in her game with a pingpong paddle:

The kids also spent a lot of time drawing with crayons and markers (and I spent an equal amount of time ensuring that Elijah and William confined their colouring to appropriate surfaces):

‘Grampa’ is a very talented guitar player, and he combines his musical gifts with endless patience with small children.  Here he is, serenading our kids on the deck at the cottage, while they ‘assist’ with the strumming:

Pretty much the only modern convenience which the cottage lacks is a bathtub, so we had to get creative with the twins’s bathtime.  Luckily for my very grubby sons, ‘Grandmaman’ had the brilliant idea of using the double kitchen sink:

Despite the lousy weather, we had a lovely time.  Here’s the family having the traditional evening sing-a-long around the bonfire: