Where We're Coming From aka This is My Family

Mike and I met almost 7 years ago at a New Year's Eve party and started dating just short of six months later. We've barely been apart since. We were married two years and 6 days after our first date, pregnant a year later and then we had Cole in February 2008.

Cole was a rough pregnancy and I think I had almost every complication known to man. I threw up non-stop and ended up on prescription medication for it. Then I developed an irritable uterus that caused contractions strong enough to wake me up at 21 weeks. Then there was the insulin dependent gestational diabetes. Finally at 30 weeks, I developed pre-eclampsia and wasn't really allowed to leave my couch or bed, let alone my home. After all that, he was born 5 weeks early, hypoglycemic and was admitted to the NICU to stabilize his blood sugars, plus being on pins and needles waiting to see if he'd brady or desat, since there were some issues there as well. Finally got to take him home and he developed colic and reflux. He cried. He screamed. I wondered what the hell we were thinking. Mike swore we were good with one. No more babies. I think because my delivery did not go well, he was terrified he'd lose me if I tried again. Cole is now 2.5 and you'd never know how much trouble he gave us at the beginning. He still gives us trouble, but well, he's 2.5. And from what I hear it doesn't get much better until around 4. Yay.

I managed to convince Mike that another would be good. So we tried again. And two years and two weeks later to the day, Carson was born. I actually joked to Mike that it was a good thing their birthdays are in different pay periods when I was in labour. My epidural must have been in by then. The only grief my pregnancy with Carson gave me was the standard first trimester morning sickness and another round of insulin dependent GD. I expected that though. Oh, and a really long, drawn out labour and being thisclose to being classed as failure to progress. I made it though. We're done with kids now. I'm kinda over jabbing myself 4 times a day for insulin. We're out of bedrooms. We're exhausted with the two we have. And they're perfect and the best thing we ever did. He's 6 months, has the best smiles and crawls all over the house.

When I met Mike he was unemployed and living at his parents at 24. Hot catch, huh? He had nice eyes that were kind, made me laugh, and I wanted to talk to him forever and it was easy. I went in from our first date knowing that I would be with him a very long time. And here we are. So we started dating and he figured he better get a job, and be responsible, etc. So he got a job stocking shelves at a drugstore. 6 years later and he's been managing stores for almost 4 of them and is now going to different low performing stores, turning them around and then moving on to the next one. It's a lot of long hours, but a good career move on his part. He created a career doing this. I am so insanely proud of him.

I'm on maternity leave still. I don't have a job to go back to since my office will close before my leave ends. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when it's up. I'll get my severance then, but other than that, who knows. I'm really enjoying this stay at home gig. It's busy. It's exhausting. I'm more exhausted and stressed out now than I was as a full time working mom. I'm also trying to deal with postpartum depression, that everyone (my dr's) is kind of nervous might turn into postpartum psychosis. I am bipolar. I had to go off my meds to get pregnant with Cole. I had not had an episode since 2002. I stayed pretty much stable all that time, even off meds. Mike says I started to slip a little at the beginning of my pregnancy with Carson. Now, here I am, back on all the meds I got off of, seeing a reproductive psychiatrist and a therapist a couple times a month, trying to get my head together and stay sane. My kids need me. I have to stay healthy.

Daddy and Son Afternoon aka my kid is now one of the no red dye kids

My sister's friend had won two tickets to Walking With the Dinosaurs, so she gave them to us for Cole. Since there were only two, I sent Mike with Cole. He's the one who's constantly watching that stuff on History and Discovery. Cole loved it. Except for the T Rex. Understandable, he was one of the biggest and loudest. And this really "nice" lady sitting behind them kept giving Cole cotton candy. Purple cotton candy. He loved it. And he kept getting more. He DID.NOT.STOP. moving for a good 3 hours after. Total gibberish coming out of his mouth, practically flying around the room, just chaos. The kind that makes you pull out your best parenting moves and scream "JUST STOP!!! Quiet game for two minutes!" while you down two extra strength Advil liqui-gels, or you're pretty sure your head is going to explode. And then who is going to clean up that mess? You. The 2 year old isn't going to do it. No matter how much he likes to "help" right now. The baby is a total loss in the help department right now. And your husband is just going to stand there with a dumbfounded look on his face, like "what do we do now?". You know. You've been there. You might not want to admit it. But we all have. Unless you live in Stepford. In which case, that's just really freaky. And this is all going on while you're trying to bake the super-nutritious meal of chicken strips and fries.

In the quest of trying to be more nutritious I got the Eating Right Chicken Strips. They're at Safeway for the Canadians. Safeway, Fry's, Kroger, Von's and Ralph's, I believe for the Americans. Skip them. Don't even look at them. They do not exist, they're that bad. Their little dot on the box is because they're high in protein. Which they are. They also boast they haven't been fried. And you can tell. I'm assuming they also figure if you want low in saturated fats, you're not looking for flavour, either. Because they're totally devoid of that. They're basically cardboard chunks shaped to look like chicken strips. I never, and I mean never salt my food. I was quite liberal with it last night. So save yourself the money. Don't buy them.

Anyways, mental note taken. No more red food dye for Cole. And now I'm not just label reading for nutrition (no glucose-fructose in the first 3 ingredients), I'm label reading to check for red food dye.

Today is one of those days where you're pretty positive fall is here. Too bad it's not even Labour Day yet. I want to go to the apple farm, but I'm pretty sure it's not even open for the season yet. I'm ready to clean up the backyard and store everything until spring. Maybe if the weather was more than 8C, I wouldn't feel that way. It's one of those casserole for dinner type of days. So, we're having one of Mike's favourites, Taco Bake. I'll post it by itself, so it's easier to link back.

Happy Sunday everyone!

Summer

It's almost over. And it was lazy, busy, hot, and went by too fast. Carson made it difficult to do things like go to the pool for the afternoon. I'd like to keep both my kids from drowning, thanks. Even going outside to play proved difficult some days. I feel so badly for Cole, because really his summer sucked. At least in my eyes. But he doesn't have a standard to hold it up to. That eases some of the mommy guilt in my mind.

I'm starting to really see the fruits of my labor in the garden. My tomato plant is heavy with tomatoes right now. Same with the pepper plant. The second cucumber is really coming along, and we ate homegrown roasted carrots last night with dinner. Speaking of dinner, we had this. We've got a busy fall coming up, so I'm debuting new crockpot recipes that don't call for "2 cans of cream of____". Not that there's anything totally wrong with it, I'd just like lower fat (ok, 2/3 cup melted butter is not that low fat), lower sodium, feed my family healthier options. It was a buttery sweet chicken that everyone enjoyed. And I'm down to one box of Reynold's Slow Cooker Liners. Canada really needs to get on board with those. Or I need to haul myself across the line to Target for more. I miss Target. But both boys, the border and ugh. But Mike needs new socks, so I might just have to suck it up and go. Why doesn't Canada have any men's black sport socks in a 13-15? I can get them in a 6-pack at Target for $12 though. Go figure.

Back to the garden. I have this issue. It's my pumpkins. I planted three seeds. One took. And it's taking over the backyard. No word of a lie. I have no idea what I'm doing as far as pinching flowers, etc, so it will be interesting to see how many we end up with.

Oooh, bell peppers.

Romas. Next year I'll have to plant some cilantro and jalapenos, as well for pico de gallo

We went camping for the first time. We did have an RV. We now have rules for camping, though.

1. It must always involve an RV.
2. No more than 2 nights.
3. And, it must be within a 3 hour drive.

We went for 5 nights. Probably a little ambitious with two kids, 2 and under. And really, we only stayed four nights. The last day we got hit with a storm after 2 other nights of rain, gave up, packed up in less than an hour and began the 8 HOUR drive home. To be fair though, we were already pretty much there for my cousin's wedding. But pulling out at 5pm to start an 8 hour drive is insane. We did do some fun things though like go to the Revelstoke Railway Museum and the Revelstoke Dam. Cole got to squish bugs, and was fascinated by the whole build a fire process.

Next up, fall. I love fall. I love the colours and the warmth. I'm itching to get out the fall decor. It's still August though. I can wait. I'm giving myself until school is at least back.