Food Obsessed

One thing you learn when you have a house full of babies is to obsessively track how much they are eating and when. As all parents know, the timing of the last bottle of the day is directly correlated as to the timing of when the baby will awaken during the night. Or so you hope.

Miss Tiny, who is anything BUT Tiny, is still not consistently sleeping through the night. I am a sleep loving mama. She is a 22 pound 8 month old who is perfectly capable of going 12 hours without a bottle. She would like you to know that about 8 hours is her maximum. She wins.

Feeding her has become an exercise in creativity. The child loves food. FOOD. Real, adult, people food. She has no teeth. NOT A SINGLE TOOTH. If it comes from a jar, her nose scrunches, her lips clench and she refuses to even consider it as edible. And really, have you tasted baby food lately? YUCK.

And so we get creative with pasta and canned fruit. She is lactose intolerant so all things cheese are out. Cheese has always been a staple baby food in my house and losing it from the menu challenges my creativity. I would love some ideas from the more domestically inclined of my readers. Or people who actually have enough energy to remember what they fed their babies.

At the same time I also have to feed Miss Precious, who is with her new foster family (HOORAY!!!) but continues to come here every day for daycare. Miss Precious and Miss Not-So-Tiny are pretty much polar opposites in all things personality. Miss Precious refuses to eat. ANYTHING. There are a variety of good reasons for her strong oral aversion, but let me tell you, nothing stresses out the motherly types like a skinny baby that won't eat. I feel like an abject failure and appease myself by giving Miss Tiny another cookie, and a few chocolates for myself.

Damm you cheap halloween candy.

Refreshed

I drove seven hours down a dark, desolate, ice covered highway in a white out. I had to pry my cramped and sweating hands from the steering wheel when we arrived at our hotel. To save money and time, we ate slightly soggy garlic sausage sandwiches for dinner that my mother had made several hours before.

The boys immediately found their team mates and arranged an impromptu session at the hotel pool and water slide. I was the only mother available to supervise. There is no word in the English dictionary to to adequately describe the sound that 15 boys can make an enclosed pool.

I fell into bed at 8:30, giving instructions to my hyper sons to make sure they found their beds by 10. I drank my glass of wine and took my sleeping pill. Sometime during the night the child with whom I was sharing my bed had an "accident". A very wet and smelly accident. I was so exhausted I didn't realize this until the next night when I crawled back into my now very smelly and now cold, damp bed. It did explain the dream I had had of needing to take the diaper garbage out though.

We made our way to the rink and I watched my sons get annihilated by a much better team. Tanner, the goalie, made over 60 saves and won the MVP trophy for the game. The problem was that he also let in 10 goals and his team scored none. What mattered to them was that he was proud of himself, and Eric was slightly embarrassed by his own play. What mattered to me was that I watched an entire game without having to change a diaper or corral a runaway toddler.

There was just enough time to head to the grocery store to buy some snacks before returning to the rink. I laughed at the irony that I was actually IN a grocery store on my weekend off, and not only that, but enjoying exploring a DIFFERENT grocery store than the ones we have at home.

Back to the rink, and Eric was determined not to be over shadowed by his little brother winning that MVP trophy, so he decided to put on a show. Four goals later, and a very ill timed roughing penalty that cost him his own MVP trophy, Eric had led his team to victory. I now had two very happy and very proud sons with a mother who was relaxed.

Back to the hotel we went. A Team Dinner. A partial cooler (because I was way to tired to even finish a drink). And I was sound asleep in my slighly damp and very smelly bed by 9.

Back to the rink for 6:30 am and two more very entertaining games where both my boys played well and their team won the Most Sportsman-like Team trophy. We turned back up that highway in the middle of a snow storm for another harrowing drive.

And I came home to two sons and two daughters and the most amazing husband who happily replied to my 97 texts updating me on every bottle and diaper change throughout the weekend, including sending me pictures of what he dressed them in for church. He had been happy to describe how Miss Tiny had managed to get poo up her back and down to her elbows just so I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything.

And the girls? Miss Curious curled into my lap, whined for a moment and hit me softly, and then gave me a wonderful kiss. The rest of our evening was full of cuddles and giggles and mama being put back to the top of the most loved list. Miss Tiny never faltered in her eye contact and slept through the night last night!!

It was busy and crazy and exhausting, and totally and completely glorious. I really, really needed it. Thanks for saying so.

Self Care

I am really, really good at taking care of my kids.

I am really, really bad at taking care of their mom.

In other words I never take or get a break. At least not very often. Mostly its GUILT. I am SUPPOSED to be home, I am SUPPOSED to be available 24-7. They will miss me. They might cry.

I am now, however, near my breaking point. It might be that Miss Tiny has decided that midnight to 2 a.m. is a "sleep optional" time, unless mama is rocking you at a consistent speed, while upright and humming a lullaby. It might be that whole "OMG I AM DYING" scare this week. It might be the fact I haven't been able to leave the house other than a frantic dash to run an errand between nap times in DAYS. Or weeks. It might possibly be months.

So I am taking a break.

It's -10C. It's snowing like mad. And my break involves taking 2 boys to a hockey tournament for the weekend in Valemount, BC which is a 6 hour drive in good weather. BUTTTTTTTT I am leaving the babies at home with a visiting Grandma and their Daddy. And I am practically GIDDY. GIDDY!!!!!! And this exhausted 35 year old mama does not get giddy often.

A bottle of wine is packed, as is a sleeping pill. For the first time in 6 months I fully intend to sleep through the night, even if it is pharmaceuticals induced. I am not going to have to change a bum. I am going to have a slobber free shirt, and arms available to drink coffee whenever I darn well feel like it. I will be able to have uninterrupted conversations with two of my sons AND the teen boys are totally fine with not crawling on my lap for 48 hours.

I will come home refreshed and missing my babies like crazy. I will have to attachment parent overboard next week to alleviate my guilt.

But I really, really need a break. And that's ok, right? Please tell me it's ok to take this break.

Would have been money well spent!

So there was the cancer. Then there was the surgery. Then there was the follow up CT Scan.

Now my Most Amazing Kidney Surgeon had asked me to do the follow up CT Scan in Vancouver back at the same hospital that my original was taken. That hospital is 7 hours away. I have alot of kids and alot of juggling to get there. There were gas costs that I can't afford right now and well, it was just easier to have my CT Scan done up five minutes down the road at our local hospital with a different radiologist and have my family doctor take a look at the results.

So I took the path of least resistance and had it done last Friday, here.

Then there was the heart stopping phone call from the doctor's office that they had found a 2 cm lesion on my liver. And of course the reassurance "not to worry, but please go for further tests as soon as possible".

THAT is not the sort of news you want to get. Especially when you know way, way, way too much about how horrible, awful, and most importantly terminal any sort of cancerous lesion on your liver is. And you have just watched someone you love go through a brutal session of chemo to treat their own liver cancer. And you have a sister who has to deal with a reality of a father and a sister with liver cancer issues.

Needless to say the last few days have been ROUGH. R-O-U-G-H.

We didn't tell the kids. I really just could not until we knew more. Which is probably a good thing.

A miss-read of the original CT Scan Report meant that my family doctor missed the fact that this "lesion" was ALREADY on my liver back before the cancer surgery. This lesion that I have been FREAKING THE HECK OUT ABOUT was already examined and determined to be absolutely nothing of any significance. It's the same dang lesion. And they didn't figure it out until a rather weepy me asked my doctor in his office TODAY to double check.

Ooooops.

Future lesson: The $150 in gas would have been a SMALL price to pay for the absolute terror I have been living in the last few days.

For those of you that knew what was going on and picked up the jiggling pieces of terrified me. THANK YOU.

That's My Boy

Pretty cool picture of my brave and honorable son that was in the Sports Section of the paper yesterday. That's him with the puck.

The bad part? He didn't score.

Ever have one of those weeks?

You ever have one of those days where it feels like the world should really slow down because you cannot process all that is happening all at once? Today was such a day.

First off, we now know that the end date of "foster parenting" the girls will be August, 2010 and most certainly we have them until that point. It is not necessarily the end date of parenting them though. That's about as much as I can say about THAT right now, but needless to say it's been an interesting day. What we do know clearly after today is how much their mother trusts and respects us. We are honored.

And then I got my CT Scan results. Yes THOSE results. And it wasn't all good news. My kidney's are clear. That IS good. What isn't clear is my liver. No results, just concerns, a "something" and more tests to come. I will know more in about two weeks. To say this came as a shock would be a rather enormous understatement.

And sadly I know too much about liver cancer right now to be calm about this. Of course, probably, most likely and it is a benign something on my liver. But then again, probably and most likely that kidney tumor was supposed to be benign too. And it wasn't. I don't want to hear about "most likelys" and "probablys". I just want to be fine and I want to be done with cancer.

Mad Momma Update

I am VERY happy to report that we have an extremely supportive hockey association and team mates that viewed the events with the same sense of shock and horror as we did.

Greg feels supported and validated in his feelings about the event and believes our assertion that racism in any setting is wrong.

We are also happy to report that the concerns were taken very seriously, and most importantly there will be an educational component for all disciplinary actions taken.

Racists are NOT welcome in hockey, or society, and I am glad that we could help to be the change to ensure that this becomes progressively less and less acceptable in EVERY circle.

For those that would argue that racism is "harmless" on the sporting field, I would assert that complacency in the face of wrong doing is simply acceptance. If you are not part of the solution to ending racism, then you yourself ARE the problem.

I know the cost to Greg to stand up and report this event at the time it occurred to his coach and the ref. I know the cost to him to stand before the Directors today and share what happened to him. It would have been much easier, at least today, to stay silent.

But the cost if he had stayed silent and simply accepted the fact that people will sometimes behave this way? Far Greater. He believes that he is worth being treated with the same respect as any other player. Any other person.

He stood up for what is right this weekend, and he had our support. Not only that but he had the support of the coaches and Minor Hockey Executive that, without our knowledge, also spoke to the Directors on Greg's behalf attesting to his honesty, integrity and honor both on and off the ice.

So thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being as upset as we were. Thank you for understanding that if we fail to react when this happens, we are giving our consent for it to continue.

Racism, Hockey and Mom Goes Mad

Remember THIS?

Nothing ever came of it. The President of BC Minor Hockey sent us a rather lame letter that said because it was not addressed on the ice, there was nothing that could be done about it. We did find out that the coach was fired by the parents later in the year. That made us feel better.

It happened again. TONIGHT. Fort St. James Bantam Rep Hockey Team. This time it was Greg. He told his coach ON THE ICE and DURING the game. The coach told the ref. ON THE ICE and DURING the game. The ref refused to do anything.

This time, the President of BC Minor Hockey is HERE. As in IN our town and AT our rink.

I maybe, kinda, sorta lost it on the coach of this other child. But if that kid touches the ice the rest of the weekend, I might be blogging from jail. Spray painting "Racist Twits" across the side of their bus is probably inappropriate and illegal but wearing a placard that says "Racists Have No Place In Hockey" isn't.

I hate racism. I hate it with a passion that causes my blood pressure to rise, my heart to race and my mind to go blank. I love my sons with an even greater passion. You combine the two? You have a mom that loses her freaking mind.

I will keep you updated. And if anyone wants to join a placard wearing mom at the rink tomorrow, let me know. That town, that team, that coach, that ref, that child and that child's parents need to know that there is NO PLACE for such stupidity in society. In hockey. Or in my town. I hate racism and sadly, right now, I hate racists.