Pandemic, Eh?

So, I realize that the health complaints I was experiencing last week (fever, chills, sore throat, extraordinary fatigue) are on the list of Swine Flu symptoms. I feel 100 per cent now (OK, 99 %), but perhaps we should put me down to Ground Zero of the Canadian pandemic?

Naturally, the media is all over this story. Ad nauseam like everything else. If I recall anything from SARS, it's that the media loves a good burgeoning pandemic. Toronto, as you may recall, was hit quite hard by SARS several years ago, and hit even harder by SARS-related panic. The Chinese origination of the disease made all local Chinese Canadians - and probably anyone looking vaguely Asianish - quite suspect. Poor Eric couldn't even clear his throat in public without people glaring and pulling out their Purell. At least this time, we can turn our (hopefully) irrational fears onto spring-breakers who just spent 7 days guzzling Coronas at a Cancun all-inclusive.

One upside to SARS, (a very, very narrowly-focused upside, mind you) was that our company made a LOT of money. When your job is providing facilities and equipment to visiting news agencies and networks, crisis events like that tend to make the company's soul-less bean counters very happy. Ours and the aforementioned Purell executives were probably the only people that were privately rejoicing at every new outbreak.

Anyway, here we go again. If you need a camera crew or a feed point let me know. Otherwise, please don't cough in my general direction. Especially all you tanned, rested travellers. This time, we are targetting you.

The Duck

Kaya doesn't really say any words yet. I know that by his first birthday Kieran was already pointing at cars and saying, quite definitively, "Cah!" but Kaya doesn't have any predictable words. And she's way past a year old already, I mean, it's been like almost 10 days since her birthday.

So, last night I decided to take matters into my own hands, speaking-wise. Kaya's splashing around in the tub, loving her bath as usual.

I hold up a rubber duck.

Me: "Kaya! It's a duck! Can you say DUCK?"

Papaya: "Duh!"

Me: "Right! Duck! Very Good!"

Papaya: "Duh! Duh! Duh!"

Me: "Yay! Duck! OK, here's a boat, say BOAT."

Papaya: "Duh! Duh!"

Me "No, boat, with a B. BOAT."

Papaya: "Duh!"

Me: "OK, how about book. Can you say book? Say BOOK."

Papaya: "Duh!"

Me: "Oh forget it."

Papaya: "Duh!"

The New Normal??

I've had this post sitting in draft status for about a week now. I can't seem to put a coherent thought together lately. I'm finding the adjustment back to work to be bit harder than I expected.

So, I think I've been back to work now for about 3 and a half weeks. So, yeah...this is it. The rest of my life. It just seems really hectic. We're still working on a decent routine - one that gets Eric to work on time in the morning and get us both home at night in time for have some sort of life. So far, all of that has been fairly elusive. The mornings have been more or less OK (not the total nightmare I expected) it's the evenings that are chaos. Dinner. Crying. Dishes. Bath. Kids to Bed. Clean the House. Workout. Collapse. Blech. Not enough hours in the day. Not enough sleep at night.

All of this is compounded by the fact that I'm a bit of a physical mess. As you may recall on my third day back at work I snapped my neck. It has taken me several weeks to get back to normal. After my neck went, it was followed by equally bizarre back spasms (which weren't quite as debilitating as the neck thing but were still horrible.)

Then, last week I was hit (as was Kieran) with some sort of seemingly malaria-like fatigue issues. I could not say awake past 9:30 at night and could barely drag myself out of bed in the morning, which has since morphed into a mini-flu. I have a low-grade fever that leaves me feeling like crap, but still able to go to work.

I'm assuming these issues will all resolve themselves. I remember being quite sick when I came back to work after my mat leave with Kieran, but this adjustment has been harder I think.

Also, seriously, enough of this stupid cold weather!!!!

One Year Old

Today is Kaya' s First Birthday. We have not bought her any gifts, which I sort of feel badly about. In my defence...we went out looking for something for her, but I couldn't find anything that I thought she would love. The Easter Bunny did leave her some presents yesterday, although he mistakenly bought sidewalk chalk because he thought they were big baby-sized crayons. Bunny needs glasses.

Of course, we did celebrate her birthday properly(well it was a family Easter/birthday dinner) so she did get lots of gifts from other people. I made her a little bumble-bee cake. The bee was sitting upright in front of a miniature regular birthday cake with a candle on top. At least, that was how the cake was when I finished decorating it and prior to lifting into the box. When I went to lower it into the box the cardboard cake board folded in the middle, smashing the little purple birthday cake into the bee's face and belly. I managed to salvage/repair the bee, but the mini-cake was a goner. Of course, Kaya did not care and I realized as she shovelled handfuls of cake covered in yellow and black icing that most people do not give their one-year olds black icing for the first birthday. I am not one of those mothers. We have lots of photos of my little one-year old looking like a baby goth.

Happy Birthday Kaya Papaya!

Robaxa-bot

So, I'm back at work. As I suspected it's been a bit chaotic, but nothing out of control and I'm sure we'll find a groove and go with it. We need to work out a reliable morning routine but otherwise it's been painless.

Or I should say, its been painless in the non-physical sense, at least. Actual physical pain? Lots of that.

You know how sometimes you sleep funny and when you wake up in the morning your neck is sore and you can't turn your head? Multiply that by about 500 and you have me today.

Last night at three am, I innocently turned my head on my pillow whilst fast asleep and I swear to God, my neck snapped. All of a sudden there was a shooting pain radiating from the side of my neck down my shoulder and into my back and up into my head and brain. I would have sat bolt upright in my bed in agony except that would have required upper body movement and at the moment I was quite paralyzed.

I finally whimpered my way out of bed and clawed my way to the kitchen where I tried to down some ibuprofen but I couldn't properly put my head back to swallow the pills so I just sort of gagged them down and hoped for the best.

I would have called in sick but it's only my third day back and I just couldn't be that much of a wimp. So this morning we unearthed some muscle relaxants in the cupboard and I sat patiently in a chair waiting from them to kick in while Eric got the kids ready to go. (Which, obviously, was the most enjoyable part of my day thus far). The bottle said the pills were good for neck spasms but all they did was make me sleepy, nauseous and did a great of job of relaxing my tongue but did nothing to the huge knot in my shoulder.

It's actually a bit better at work. Thank you Ergonomic desk chair for holding my spine exactly where it should be. As long as I don't have to turn my head in any direction I can pass for a normal person and not a robot. I may have to wheel this baby home with me tonight in order to get some decent sleep.

I've decided that I'm going to blame the change in routine for my current state of agony, even though its probably not related. But it makes me feel better to think that. Otherwise, I might have to admit that its age-related or something depressing like that. No, I won't go there.

Stupid office job. This is your fault.

Frazzled

So, in a few short hours I will be officially off maternity leave. I am feeling stressed about it, but if I recall from when I returned to work after Kieran, I'm pretty sure it will all be fine.

Still, I had last week off to get myself organized and integrate the kids into full time daycare. The days were a bit shorter for them than they will be from here on out, but they did pretty well. As for me? Not so much.

I tried to cram lots of stuff into last week. Vet appointments (fleas), my yearly physical (fleas), running lots of errands, cleaning etc. On Friday, I had to get my blood work done (just for a physical folks, please trust me that I'm not pregnant) so I was sort of in a rush to get the kids out the door, get the medical stuff done and then have the rest of my day to myself - no cleaning, no errands. I was feeling a bit frazzled, but got the kids dropped off and then went to the blood lab to take my place in line behind about 30 people. Awesome.

Then my cell phone rang. I had sent Kaya to daycare without a diaper on. I still have no idea how this is possible. She had on a onesie, pants and shirt. No diaper. The babysitter was calling to make fun of me (although, I think she may have been a bit worried about my state of mind).

Anyway, I finish giving blood and then, since I had been required to fast for the tests, I hit the Tim Horton's drive thru. I pulled in, sped RIGHT past the little speaker and drove right up to the window without ordering anything. The guy working the window just looked at me like I was new on the planet.

Me: "Uhhhh, guess I missed the ordering part, huh?"

Guy: "Sure did."

It wasn't even 1030 am and I had two people questioning my sanity, so I went home. I was thinking of doing a bit of shopping, but it suddenly seemed risky.

Hopefully, I get my act together and tomorrow morning is a breeze. Diapers and all.

This Post is Making me Itchy

I have a decidedly love-hate relationship with our cats. Well, I should say cat (singular) since we are down to one.

We decided around Christmas that enough with enough. We had two kids on asthma puffers...one of whom had been on his puffer continuously for several months. Sassy was ramping up her urinary protest at the misery of her life by peeing every single day in Eric's gym...which as his clients will gladly tell you, is absolutely NO way to run a business.

Sassy now lives happily with another owner, whose carpets are still apparently pee-free.

Our other cat, Wesley, who still resides in our house, is quite a different story. We discovered after we moved into this house that keeping him indoors was an impossibility. He's superfast and wily. The second the door is opened he'd be out like a shot...although sometimes if my reflexes were fast enough I could throw my foot out and wedge his skull against the doorjamb, but, obviously he'd howl protest, and the second you'd let up he'd be halfway down the street. So, eventually we learned to embrace his outdoorsiness and I learned (sort of, but not really) to tolerate the parade of dead birds and mice that turn up on my doorstep.

But when he's indoors he is a wonderful cat. You couldn't ask for a better animal around kids...he has infinite patience with both babies and two-year-olds, and, in fact,not only does he not mind his fur being yanked and eyes being poked, he seems to actively seek it out. On many occasions he will curl up in Kieran's lap and I'll catch them napping together on the couch.

Anyway, the kids haven't been on their asthma puffers since Christmas, so that is a good sign. And we are down to one cat, which is surely helping, but Wesley has one big problem that still drives me crazy.

You know how when you go camping or to the cottage with a group of people and there is always one person who the mosquitoes loves more than anyone else? While everyone else is roasting weenies on the fire there is invariably that poor sod next to you, continually slapping and scratching and slathering on as much DEET as possible, Cancer-be-damned? Well, were Wesley a person...he'd be that guy. Only not with mosquitoes with fleas.

Wesley is a fleabag. When I would take both cats to the vet Wesley usually had fleas and Sassy didn't. Last year, just after Kaya was born and Wesley had reverted to his outdoor ways, I remember looking down at her in my arms and seeing a flea crawl across her head. Since at that point I was still counting her age in DAYS for God sake, I had to beg the vet to sell me the flea stuff without paying for a full check up, which is apparently "illegal" but they took pity on me and my newborn.

Anyway, here we go again... only this year, I know the fleas are back because they are attacking ME. Its brutal. I have a bites all over me and I'm scratching like crazy. I had a Dr appointment yesterday and she asked me what was going on. Do you KNOW how embarrassing it is to tell your Doctor that you have fleas?? So, back to the vet we went yesterday to start him back on medication which we are now going to keep him on year round.

I should mention that I am the only one in the house the fleas go for. Eric and kids are both totally bite free. Although sometimes watching me scratch makes Eric paranoid but there is no evidence of him being bitten. Me...I'm the only loser around the campfire in this house.

So, love/hate. Kieran would be very sad if Wesley were to go. I would be a lot less sad, and a lot less itchy. But, assuming the kids grow out of their asthma, the flea thing is his only flaw. Wesley doesn't even bother with the litterbox inside for most of the year. All he needs is a bag of $5 Friskies and water and he's good to go. Practically maintenance-free!

Anyway, for now he's staying. Fleas and all.

Frig, I'm itchy.