Raisins and other scary things

Last night I had a nightmare. I dreamt I was eating chocolate peanuts and only when I had some in my mouth did I realize there were chocolate raisins in with them. The scary part was that I kept eating them *shudder*.

I'm having a lot of fun with cooking lately. I watch cooking shows on tv when I'm feeding Sage during the night. I've also recently chosen to watch them during the day when there's nothing else on. I like learning tips on how to do stuff and it's shown me that some things I thought were hard or never would have tried are actually not that difficult. For instance I saw the Barefoot Contessa make some spinach and feta phyllo pastry rolls, and I decided to make something similar for my cousin's baby shower I'm going to tomorrow. (Yay for Wendi due in November!) I just finished them, and tasted one that didn't quite turn out to be a triangle. Instead of rolls I made triangles stuffed with the cheese and spinach mixture. It was yummy. Because I want to cook like they do on tv, I decided I needed a large wooden spoon like everyone who's on tv does. I saw it in the PC grocery store downtown and had to have it. The cashier asked me if I had naughty kids at home when she saw it. She explained that she'd been beaten by her parents with a wooden spoon when she was a kid. She was laughing and smiling when she said it, but I think she never really got over that pain. I told her I wanted it for cooking, not beating. I've also been eyeballing some other kitchen utensils that I don't have. If someone were to ask me what I wanted for Christmas, *ahem hem* they would be told that I want a rolling pin, a whisk with a good handle, a cake mixer (the kind with its own bowl if you're rich enough, the hand-held kind if I'm not in fantasy land) a good cutting board, measuring cups that nestle together up to one cup, and maybe some chop sticks.

I make me laugh.

Here are some pictures for y'all. Such a happy sleeping baby! He smiled at me on his six weeks birthday. A real smile, not just a gas-induced one. He had been crying half-heartedly in bed one morning, and when I leaned down and smiled into his face, he looked me in the eyes and smiled right back. It was such a great moment. I've been wishing to get a picture of his smiles, but so far he won't do it long enough for me to grab the camera. These happy faced sleeping pictures are close. Finally he's not frowning!

And Kitty was helping to keep Sage warm by cuddling up to him. She doesn't weigh a thing, so I wasn't worried about him getting squished.

Six Weeks Old

Happy Birthday again Sage! It seems like only a couple weeks ago you were born, or at least a month and a half.

Hayden gives Sage a kiss.

Drooling Monster
Baby Blue Eyes (and me)
Tummy Time - and not too happy.
See?
A fluke shot in the background of Jake and Hayden playing "Stomping"

I didn't know his face was scrunched up.

I think he looks a little like a gorilla here - a cute one.

No one will ever be able to resist this face. (maybe just a little baby botox needed between the eyebrows)

Stupid Blogger

It's frustrating sometimes because this blogger program sometimes doesn't publish photos. Or I try to upload a photo, then it says it did it, but really it hasn't. I'm going to kick this website program with my cyber foot.

*kick*

there now I feel better.

Picture Backlog

Here are some photos of the past couple of days, starting with last Friday at Jake's birthday dinner that incidentally he cooked for me and my parents. It was awesome! Lightly battered salmon pieces and shrimp deep fried, also home made french fries deep fried. And steamed broccoli. Also some garlic butter shrimp. It was fantastic! My parents brought the cake. It was soooo good!

Hayden was so tired this day (Monday I think) that he fell asleep in the chair. I'm glad his retro little outfit was captured on camera. Those pants are hillarious! He looked like a beatnik from the 60s. If only his turtleneck had been black...

Sleeping Sage. Awww!

Today was our last midwife appointment. Sage will be 6 weeks old tomorrow. He weighs 10lbs 14oz, which means he's put on two pounds in three weeks! He had a slow start, losing and gaining and losing again, but he's sure making up for it. These pictures are of Buffy, my primary midwife. You'll note Sage is quite interested in the ceiling.

This is a shot of Sage's birth announcement at the Midwife's office. Also the other babies born in August are listed. I like the boy's name right after Sage.. Asher.

Herbs Work!

Just a quick note to say that fenugreek and blessed thistle really do increase milk supply! I started taking them on Saturday and I've already noticed a big difference. Why didn't I take these sooner? What was I waiting for? Anyway it's just in time because Sage is about to turn 6 weeks and will be starting his growth spurt soon.

My boobs even ache! Like, "gimme that baby to nurse because my boobs ache!" It's a terrific kind of hurt.

More later,
love
Jennifer

Mice

To whoever left the comment "where did the mouse come from?", let it be known that we have mice. We were told before we moved in that there were mice here, and because the house is right beside a large field and heavy machines repair shop, the landlord said exterminating would not work. When we saw the first one last fall (we moved here Sept 05) we said "aww lookit how cute that little mousie is!" and we didn't set traps or put out poison. It was only in the back room anyway, so we figured, live and let live. We did get a cat tho, but he stayed in the bedrooms because he was afraid of Lacey, so wasn't much help. Then a few months later we noticed there were more of them. Oh well, we thought, as long as they're staying in the back room, we're okay with it. Then they started coming out and eating out of Lacey's bowl in the kitchen. Then we noticed poop in the cutlery drawer. Then we saw one in the drawer under the stove. Then we noticed poop in the drawer we had kept cat food in in Hayden's room. Then we bought some traps. We killed one or two a day for a while, but it wasn't diminishing their numbers very fast. We got rid of the ineffective cat. Then we went away for a couple weeks. We had set up a sonic rodent deterrant (read: piece of crap) with the hopes that the ultrasonic sounds would bounce around the kitchen and into the mice's ears, and they would flee. (Not flea, but we have those too.) Or at least that's what the packaging said they would do. While we were away, the mice did play. They totally took over the house! The stink when we walked in was incredible. Luckily we have a carpet cleaner, because they'd peed and pooed all over the place. We shopped for tupperware containers for our cutlery and pots and pans. Jake bleached drawers and cupboards. We bought more traps and two types of poison. We were ruthless. We were cruel. So much for live and let live.. now we were at war! It worked. The front lines were pushed back far into their territory, and we re-claimed our house. We still had poison and traps out until we got Kitty. Because she isn't a scaredy cat and roams around the entire house, we picked up the traps and got rid of the poison so she wouldn't get hurt. We're hoping she will want to chase and kill the mice. That's why we wanted to introduce her to the one that Jake saw in the laundry basket the other day.

And that's the story of how we have mice.

The end.

Fitting Right In

Well Kitty fits right in with our family, like the pinky finger on a glove. A six fingered glove, because now there are six of us. But not a six fingered glove in a Crucible kind of way or a Princess Bride sort of way... more like in a Star Trek way.

I love how nerdy I am. Anyone wanna play crazy eights?

Pictures

Yay! Finally a family photo. Thanks Fionna.

Fionna babysat for us while we went to East Side Mario's for a yummy birthday dinner.

Non-challant Hayden sits with Kitty.

Kitty and Lacey at peace on the couch.
Hayden's new Spongebob Squarepants bedspread, sheets, and pillows - Thank you Nanna!
Aww cute Kitty.
My Boys
Kitty gets introduced to a mouse. She didn't do much to it. Hopefully she will get fiercer soon. (I let the mouse go beside a shed far away from our house. Hopefully it won't find its way back.)

Happy Thirty-Oneth Birthday Jake!

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Jake,
Happy birthday to you!

Kitty!

Well without further ado, let me introduce to you our new cat, formerly named Mya, now named Kitty. I did that because Hayden can say Kitty. It sounds like "Tiggy". I hope Mindi's cat Kitty doesn't mind the namesaking...

As soon as I picked her up, she started nibbling on my fingers, and a few minutes later batted at my glasses and scratched my face with love. I'm sure it was with love. Then I picked up Sabrina and we headed to her store to get Kitty outfitted with stuff. Not too bad, love that discount! Spent $9 less than I'd budgeted. On the way home, Kitty fell asleep in the cat cage that I'd borrowed from my parents. So cute! And able to relax in new situations too! Good sign. When we got home, Jake put Lacey outside and I finished mopping the back room and then Jake put out the litter box and food/water dish. Right away Kitty pooped in her litter box. What a good kitty! After I fed Sage, I put Kitty back in her litter box and let her explore from there. I wanted her to know where the starting point was, so she could map out the house in relation to her box. We set up the baby gates in such a way that Lacey would be unable to access the box (she eats cat poop) and catfood, but also so that Kitty would be able to get to her area of the house. So far, 4 hours later, it's working out pretty well! When Lacey came inside and was introduced to Kitty, she was excited, understandably. However, they only spent a little while being at odds with each other. Kitty slapped Lacey a couple times across the nose, and now Lacey pretty much respects her. Good job Kitty! And just now while I was on the phone with my mother, Kitty rubbed up against Lacey's nose! So cute! All in all, this period of adjustment is going way better than I anticipated, and completely clinches my feeling that this cat belongs with my family.

I couldn't have asked for a better cat. Oh wait. I did ask for her.

For some reason, this is the only photo that I could upload tonight. I will get you more tomorrow.

Fooled you?

So how many of you thought that picture of the little boy in front of the twister mat was Hayden? Did anyone? It's not him, just some random kid I found when I typed into Google Image search "kids that look like Hayden playing Twister". Not really. I wanted a cool twister game in progress for the end of my last post, and after viewing over 50 photos, found this little guy!

The back foyer is almost finished being cleaned out. Just garbage removal of the last garbage box and the garbage bin, also a thorough cleansing of the floor. We had about 5 or 6 boxes that we hadn't unpacked back there, which I had to look at to see if they had any salvageable things that the mice didn't poop on or die near. Amongst the things destroyed were my South Park kids dolls , many books and video movies, almost all our christmas decorations, and a box that I couldn't even look into because right at the very top was a dried out mouse. Wahh wahh wahh! This is very painful for me, due to my pack-rat-ish nature, no pun intended. I did find some good stuff that I'd been looking for though, which is good. For example, my "Encore" game (a great group game that involves a lot of singing, PERFECT for my family!), the left size one Nike, a big tin of hair accessories that also had a bunch of my gold earrings in there, and my slow cooker. There was some other stuff saved, but not much. Stupid mice. They'll be sorry once Mya lives here muahahahahaaaa!

The summer's gone...

...and all the flowers are dying...

Jake's birthday is on the autumn equinox, and with that brings the end of another summer. Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy I love you so.

My inner poet is trying to get out.

My mom read me a poem I wrote a lo-ong time ago that Carol quoted in a letter to my grandmother which my mother had saved. One of the lines I remember went "Sisters sisters sisters/They help you when you have blisters". What a great line. Although I don't really remember Carol ever really helping me when I had blisters, she's very dependable and helpful nevertheless.

Here's that poem revised for 2006:

Sisters sisters sisters
Sometimes help you when you have blisters
But if they don't
As sometimes they won't
Then they won't be allowed to play twister.

tadaa

One Month Old

You know what's bad about not working or keeping track of what day it is? You almost miss your son's one month birthday! So without further ado...

HAPPY ONE MONTH BIRTHDAY SAGE!!

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy one-month-old BIRTHDAY dear Sa-age,
Happy Birthday to you!

Mya Photo

For some reason I couldn't upload this picture to yesterday's post, so here it is. Isn't she adorable? Also good is the fact that she doesn't look exactly like Ma'm'zelle, markings-wise, but she reminds me of her.

Mya

Recently Jake agreed that we can get a cat. I made very specific rules for myself on this issue, as just "any ole cat" would not do. She had to be a dilute calico (grey, tan, and white) short haired kitten under 4 months old. Any older than that and there would be a greater chance that she would not get along with Lacey. I put a couple ads online for free, not expecting to ever get a call, but to feel like I was doing something productive. Also the population of dilute calico kittens in this neighbourhood is slight to non-existent. I expected a long wait before my call to every "free kitten" ad produced my kitty (which I had not started calling yet, but was planning). That is until this morning. I heard the phone ring, and because I was busy feeding Sage did not answer. The message was from a woman named Nicky who needed to find a new home for her 11 week old dilute calico kitten, because she was chasing the woman's very expensive Cockatiel. The message said the kitten had been adopted from the North Bay SPCA and had her first set of shots, also that she got along well with the woman's other cats, 2 dogs, and kids.

There are several signs indicating to me that adopting Mya is the right move. First of all, she responded to my ad when I never thought anyone would. Secondly, she adopted her from the North Bay SPCA, and we got our dog Lacey from North Bay. It would be fitting if both our pets were from the same town. Thirdly, her name is Mya, an M name just like Ma'm'zelle. I had her for 13 years. I got her from a farm just north of Toronto when my family went to a country fair. At the same time my sister also got a kitten, a brown tabby, whom she named Niki (fourth co-incidence as the lady's name is Nicky). The reason we needed kittens was that our family cat had just died a few days prior, at the very respectable old age of 20 years. Her name was Mia - the fifth co-incidence, being very close to the name Mya. When Ma'm'zelle ran away on August 11th 2004, it broke my heart, and I've been trying to repair it ever since.

When I talked to Nicky, she agreed that picking her up later next week would be acceptable. I need to clean out the back foyer which is where the litter box is going. Also we need to wait till payday before we can get a litter box and all the other cat necessities. Luckily for me, my great friend Sabrina works in a pet store and has a 15% discount!

So, yay for me! Perfect kitty circumstances, no waiting! It would have been a little more perfect if this happened 2 or 3 weeks from now, but as I told Jake, I don't think all these criteria will be met again so perfectly for a very long time. Nicky told me she had been looking for a dilute calico kitten for THREE YEARS before finding Mya 5 weeks ago. Yikes.

Pacifier Face

This morning as I was gazing down at Sage, he spit out his do-do/binky/soother. Different family members call a soother different things. Jake's side is binky, my side is do-do, and personally I prefer soother. Anyway he spit it out, and on his cheeks and chin was a red outline of said plastic sometime-godsend. He must have had quite the suck going on! I don't remember Hayden having quite that red of an impression after he soothed.

Counter!

Hey Lookit Me! I've added a counter so I can tell whenever you guys look at me. Actually I added two counters, but one of them is in Chinese because I think it's a beautiful script. (Plus it takes me back to playing Mah-Jong with Gina and Muriel.)

Keep on viewing! I want to see my counter grow.

love,
me

Thursday Sept 14

Today we went to the doctor for Hayden's 18 month shots. He did really well and got his first lolly pop ever. At first he was more upset at the lolly pop being aimed at his lips than he was for the needles. Finally Jake got the lolly in contact with his tongue, and then he realized what a treat it was. Of course he drooled all over the place until he crunched it and then it was a matter of minutes before it was finished.

Here are some pictures I took while trying to get one of Sage's cute smiles on camera.

Presto! Change-o! Now I make this ordinary diaper into a stinky mess!

Say "Ahhh"

Ole!

Stare deeply into my eyes. You want to give me presents.. you want to give me presents.. Hey who changed my diaper into a stinky mess?

Work VIsit

Today's adventures included a trip to show off Sage at work. I also had to bring in some forms to HR in order to receive the financial supplement they're providing for the first six months of my leave. What a trip! We got there at 12:45pm, right at my team's lunch time. I timed it like that so as to be the least disruptive on the floor. Aren't I a consciencious Team Leader? I thought so too. An hour and a half later we finally made it out, and we didn't even get to see the inbound people because Sage was starting to be fussy. It was really great to see my work friends again. I miss those guys! Too bad you can't go to work whenever you want to, still get paid, but do no work. Speaking of Steve Villeneuve.. HAHAHA! just kidding. I wonder who will read this and get that joke? Will Steve himself even read this? How will I ever know?

That's it for me for now. Take care, brush your hair.

Danielle the Health Nurse

Today Danielle our Health Nurse came by to weigh Sage before and after a feeding, to see if we could measure how much breast milk he was getting. It didn't work. The scale wasn't sensitive enough to report how much he got, but she figured it was probably around 2 ounces, since his supplement is only 2 ounces, and by now babies are usually getting about 4 oz per feeding. Well anyway it would've been cool to see, but oh well. We did get a couple pictures of her with her favorite client ever, Hayden.

(Incidentally Sage weighs 9 lbs 4 oz now, that's an ounce a day he's gaining.)

Spaghetti Casserole

Mmmm Tonight I made a super casserole. Spaghetti noodles with yummy tomato sauce (included were onions, garlic, fresh tomato (without skin cuz I hate how it curls up in a sauce), 1/2 a jar of salsa (for extra veggie goodness and also I didn't have any more fresh veggies) and Ragu spaghetti sauce. Oh and ground beef. All of this I prepared as though it were going to be a regular spaghetti dinner, but I've been craving melted cheese over spaghetti for a few days, so I mixed noodles and sauce together in a large dish and then put a whole container of cream cheese in a layer on top, and also grated cheddar cheese over that. Then I baked it for 15 mins at 350, until the cheeses were melted, but not browned. Mmmm then I served it. The cream cheese adds a yummy zip to the sauce, as well as mixing somewhat to make the sauce slightly creamy. Anyway it was good. I'm bringing the rest of it to my mom and dad's house for dinner tmr because there is so much left!

Sept 10th

On Thursday last week we all trooped out to Sage's 3 week midwife appointment. It went well. He's gained a whole pound, coming in at 9 lbs even. Yay for great success at breastfeeding! (and supplementing too, but let's highlight the good stuff) We have one more visit with the midwife, at 6 weeks old, but then we're done and go to Dr Krawczuk (pronounced craw-chuck) for everything else.

Today's photos are of some sleepy heads...

Saturday Sept 9th

Happy Birthday Penny and Sabrina!

Last night I noticed that Hayden's getting a fifth molar. No wonder he's so drooly!

Jake killed a huge spider that was *shudder* crawling across my breastfeeding pillow while I was breastfeeding. I never saw it, just Jake's blurry self as he leapt across the room and smacked one of Hayden's books down on me. I said "ouch! My incision!" because he was pushing down really hard on one end of it. He didn't let up, which was odd, I thought. Then he threw the pillow on the ground and stood on the book he was using to crush the spider. He said "I'm sorry but there was a spider crawling on you." When he lifted the book, for a split second I looked at the spider, and then closed my eyes very quickly. HUGE does NOT describe it. Ok well it does. Now we both have heebie jeebies.

Here are some cute photos of my darling second son. (That'll get my mind off the spider.)

Hayden in the Woods

Hayden and his daddy went for a long walk in the woods behind my parent's house this afternoon. Here are a lot of photos of the event. Is it just me or is Hayden the cutest 20 month old boy around?

Hayden was so tired that on the way home he fell asleep on Jake's shoulders. That being unsafe, Jake ended up carrying him home cradled in his arms the rest of the looong way back while Hayden enjoyed his lovely outdoor travelling nap. When Jake came into the living room where Sage, Gramma and I were waiting, Hayden looked so cute asleep in his arms. I wish I coulda gotten a picture of his little wee face as he woke up. Oh well. Poor Jake's arms.. so very sore!

Hayden "Elvis" Huss

Jake said Hayden was really keen on eating those long stalks of grass.

I do the mash! the monster mash!

Posing

Beautiful scenery

Look how cute he is! With those big ole feet...

Hayden pretends to pick blueberries (they're out of season now, just a few stragglers left) Another cute photo with a great background.
Hayden in the Wild Wild Woods.