mommies don’t have penises

bedtime for the boys started out pretty normal tonight. diapers changed, pajamas on, and teeth brushed, we went into Logan’s room to put him to bed first. as usual, Zander helped us sing “rock-a-bye Logan”, and then yelled “bounce!” as daddy plopped Logan in the crib. i said “sweet dreams, sleep well, see you in the morning!”, blew kisses from the doorway, and closed his door. then it was off to Zander’s room.

that’s when the bedtime routine too a sharp left.

i was giving Zander the usual hugs and kisses before putting him to bed when he looked me in the eye with a quizzical look

Zander: mommy…do you have a penis?

my jaw dropped to the floor. i looked towards Carlos to see his jaw was right down there with mine.

me: [stiffleing a giggle] no, i don’t have a penis. only boys have penises.

Zander: does daddy have a penis?

daddy: [grinning mischievously] yup…daddy has a big penis.

Zander: does mommy have a big penis?

me: no…mommies don’t have penises. only boys have a penis. you have a penis, Logan has a penis and daddy has a penis. but girls don’t have penises. they have vaginas.

Zander: [very serious about learning the truth] oh.

where that came from, i have no idea. what i can tell you is that i was so not expecting that.

seriously…where do they get this stuff?

Haiku Friday: pms payback

i was so lucky
no pms to speak of
never had a cramp

been told no mood swings
no bloating or discomfort
but it wouldn’t last

come back to bite me
with these head-splitting migraines
payback, you’re a bitch!

is was so lucky, and i took it for granted. and oh, am i paying for it now!

i went through high school never having been bothered by my period…other than the inconvenience of the bulky pads available in the late 80’s. mind you, every once in a while i would feel a little nauseated on the first day, but that’s it. and this continued through my 20s and early 30s. okay…i can here you yelling nasty names at me….just get it out of your system now so i can proceed with my pity party story.

i’ve been told that i don’t have mood swings during that time of the month. hubby even asked me after we’d been living together for about a year if i would plot my cycles on the calendar so he would know when i was having it because he couldn’t tell…just so he would know when it was appropriate to try and put the moves on me.

when i was late in my pregnancy with Zander, i asked my doctor what contractions would feel like when they started. she told me they would feel like period cramps. i told her i’d never had any. by the look on her face, she thought i was lying. seriously people…never. one. cramp.

well, i’m now paying for all those carefree years. about 7 months ago i started getting migraines with my cycle. they start either the day before or on the first day of my period. they last anywhere from 2-4 days. and they are excruciating. i’m talking jam-something-sharp-through-my-eye-socket-and-into-my-brain-and-then-wiggle-it
around-in-there kind of pain.

during these migraines, i can hardly take care of the boys, let alone myself. i never knew how noisy they were until each little sound felt like a cleaver cutting into my skull. or how much light the curtains in the living room still let through when they’re closed. or how many toys we have that make all types of seizure inducing noise. or how fucking bright this laptop monitor is!

this whole thing has forced me to not make plans anywhere near my expected monthly. unfortunately, my crystal ball isn’t always clear.

as some of you know, i am a big time paper-crafter and card-maker, and am a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator to make a little cash to support my hobby. in recent months, i have lost my passion. i’m trying to get it back, because when i’m doing it i am so happy. damn ppd.

anyhoo, a few months ago i signed up to attend a convention in Ottawa for Canadian demonstrators. i’ve been so excited about it…until last week when i realized it landed at the start of my cycle. the convention is tomorrow. sure enough, my period started yesterday…and so did my migraine. i’ve been trying to complete some cards for a swap i’m going to be participating in tomorrow, while my head is threatening to split in half and my eyeballs feel like they are liquifying.

this is the second day of my migraine, and i’m praying that i will wake up tomorrow and it will be gone. but i’m not holding out too much hope.

oh payback…you are a cold-hearted bitch!

mr. contrary

did you ever read those mr. men and little miss books when you were younger? you know the ones…Little Miss Sunshine, Mr. Fussy, etc., written by British author Roger Hargreaves. i did. i loved them.

well, i have an idea for a book to add to the collection. i would name it “mr. contrary”, and it would be inspired by someone very close to my heart. ( i won’t name names…Zander!)

here’s how my story would go.

once upon a time there was a little boy named Zander mr. contrary. he always had to do the opposite of everyone else, say the opposite of everyone else, or just plain disagree with everyone for the sake of disagreeing.

one day, Zander mr. contrary was playing with his mommy. mommy asked “do you want to build a tower with lego blocks?”. Zander mr. contrary said “no, i don’t want to play with lego blocks!”, so his mommy said “okay.”. then Zander mr. contrary whined said “but i wanna build a tower with lego blocks!!!”. his mommy rolled her eyes said “great! lets start building!”.

after lunch when his mommy was putting Zander mr. contrary down for his nap, she said ” i love you!”. Zander mr. contrary said “i don’t want to love mommy”. but when she was leaving the room, he yelled “i love you too!” just as she was closing the door.

later that day, Zander mr. contrary was in the kitchen while his mommy and daddy were washing and chopping veggies for a salad for dinner. his mommy asked “do you want to stand on a chair and watch?”, but he said “no”. as his mommy and daddy went about their dinner-making business Zander mr. contrary started crying. his daddy ask “what’s wrong?”, and Zander mr. contrary whimpered “i want to stand on a chair and watch!”. so his mommy and daddy stiffled a laugh ran right over to get a chair for Zander mr. contrary to stand on.

at the dinner table, his daddy asked him “do you want some chicken?”, and Zander mr. contrary said “i don’t like chicken!”, so his daddy put the fork loaded with chicken back down on the plate. then Zander mr. contrary cried said “but i want some chicken!!!”. his daddy sighed in exasperation picked up the fork, said “okay…here comes some chicken!”, and fed him some chicken.

and this continued until Zander mr. contrary slowly drove his mommy and daddy insane.

the end.

okay, so it’s not totally appropriate for children…and i need to work on the ending a bit. but it’s only a first draft…i’m sure it will be a wonderfully endearing story by the time i’m done…if i haven’t lost all my marbles by then.

Haiku Friday: the magic of corn

the magic of corn
such a strange phenomenon
such a small veggie

no matter how much
we chew chew chew when we eat
it reappears whole

sorry if that’s tmi, but seriously…whaddup with that???

the other day we had corn with our dinner. the next morning i was changing Logan’s diaper on the floor in the living room. as is more often than not, his diaper was loaded with danger full of poop. and there it was…the tell-tale sign of the previous night’s dinner…completely reassembled as if never ingested.

that’s when Zander walked up and asked if Logan had pooped. (yes…he wants to see his brother’s poop all the time, as well has his own…that’s a weird post for another day!) he stood there staring at it as if Logan had been hiding a green, three-headed alien in his diaper.

then he raised his head, his big, blue eyes wide with wonder, and asked “mommy…why does Logan have corn in his diaper?”.

what do you say? how do you explain to a three year old that, for some unknown reason, corn has the magical ability to make it past your chompers and through your entire digestive system with barely a scratch, and then mystically reassemble itself upon its exit? how?

i told him “when we eat food, it goes down to our tummy, and then comes out as poop. so there’s corn in Logan’s diaper because we ate it for dinner last night, and he pooped it out.”. he looked at me like i had finally lost it. kid…i lost it a long time ago…

so i thought about it…how do i explain this to him in terms that he will understand. EUREKA! Zander is addicted to a Canadian show called Mighty Machines. it’s a cute show with footage of trucks, boats, what-have-you that have annoying-as-hell cute little voices explaining what they do. his current favourite is the one about recycling with the crusher, the compactor, etc.

i put on my best straight face and said “well, when you eat food, it goes down your throat like a conveyor belt to your tummy. your tummy is like a compactor and smooshes all the food up, and then it comes out as poop.” (note that i decided to skip the whole intestinal tract/bowl thing…i mean, he’s three!)

his face brightened as he said “oh..ya!”.

so now if you ask him where poop comes from, he will happily tell you a colourful story full of machinery and gadgets.

unfortunately, he never got his answer as to why whole corn was in Logan’s diaper. as soon as i learn the secret behind the magic of corn, i’ll let him know.

Pink Eye waiting to happen

i swear, Logan is a wobbly-walking accident waiting to happen. sometimes hubby and i wonder how he survives the day. i know toddlers tend to have no fear…but he not only has not one teensy-tiny bit of fear, he laughs at fear…and common sense. he goes head first into everything…even if it’s a pile of pointy wooden blocks. doesn’t matter.

he takes the same no-fear, no-forethought attitude to every aspect of his day. whether it’s meal time, bath time or time for a diaper change. it’s the latter that we are currently battling.

lately, Logan has taken a liking to shoving both his hands down the back of his diaper. he’ll walk around the house like that. he’ll stand with his pudgy little hands crammed down his diaper while watching TV (not that my kids watch much TV at all…i swear!). he’ll sit on the floor and play with one hand while having the other hand stuck between his cheeks. and then he’ll rub his eyes. lovely.

the other day i was sitting on the couch talking to my mom on the phone while the boys were happily playing. Logan came up to me and started rubbing his hand on my pant leg. i look down to see his hand covered in poop. which meant that my pants were covered in poop. and his shirt. and his pants. and his back. and both hands. it was even in his belly button. (still trying to figure that one out since there wasn’t any poop anywhere else on his belly.) he had put his hands down the back of his diaper at a most unfortunate time, and made a party of it. again, oh-so-lovely.

then there’s the actual act of changing his diaper. if he’s pooped, you can guarantee that he will try to get his hands on it. and then, inevitably, he will stick his fingers in his eyes.

it’s like a compulsion. his hands must be dirty, covered in filth-muck before he can rub his eyes. it’s the same at dinner…he’ll wait till his hands are covered in bits of corn or pasta sauce before rubbing his eyes. but as much of a pain in the ass it is to decrust his eyes after each meal, what we’re really worried about is the dreaded Conjunctivitis.

Zander had Pink Eye when he was a baby, but we didn’t have to worry about another child. but now….it’s so contagious, and with both boys running around touching each other’s faces, Zander wiping tears from Logan’s face when he’s crying, etc., it would just be a matter of time before they both had it. i can see it now…my boys looking up at me with those gorgeous, big blue eyes….surrounded by whites that have turned an angry pink. joy.

i guess we just have to face facts. Logan is a ticking time bomb…for Pink Eye, among many, many other things. welcome to the monkey house.

beware the wrath of Effexor

i’ve tried a couple of different drugs for my ppd since being diagnosed a year ago. i’m still trying to find one that works well. they all seem to work on some of my…er…issues, but not all.

Luvox was great for my depression, but did nothing for my anxiety attacks. Celexa worked wonders on my anxiety, but did nothing for my depression and made my fatigue worse (i didn’t even think that was possible!).

i’m currently on Effexor. i was told that this drug can take longer to work than others, so we gave it a while. i’ve been on it for 7 months now, and i’m just not thinking it’s the drug for me. first of all, it took a couple of months to do anything. Secondly, it’s worked on my depression as well as my anxiety, but has fallen short for me. it’s take a bit of the edge off….but that’s it. even after my dose was increased, it doesn’t seem to do as much as the others.

and lastly…and this is the big one….it was simply too easy for me to fall back into my depression-induced malaise after the move to the new house. my anxiety has creeped back. not as bad as before the meds, but bad enough to be a big, red, flashing warning light that something is amiss. my fatigue is almost unbearable. i can hardly wake up and i nap whenever i get the chance (even in the car for the 5 minute trip to the grocery store). as for my passions, which are blogging and cardmaking….well…they’ve gone out the window, as is clearly evident by my few-and-far-between posts over the past couple of months. i’ve also lost touched with so many friends…i’ve become a hermit again.

so there you have it. i rest my case. it’s time for a new drug.

but here’s the rub. events in the last couple of days have made me scared to get off the Effexor. allow me to explain…

the other night i didn’t sleep much. my asthma was so bad that i kept waking up in spectacular fits of choking. so i was up reading most of the night while trying to quell my attacks. (atleast if i was awake, i could catch the attacks before they grew to catastrophic proportions.) so when morning came, i had slept a grand total of 2.5 hours. what with the brain fog and all, i failed to remember that my Effexor prescription had run out the day before, and that i had called in my refill but hadn’t picked it up yet. this is where the story takes a horrific turn.

sometime in the afternoon i started to feel weird. my doctor had warned me of the possibility of a “zinging” sensation when going off of Effexor, so i knew what it was, and that it was because i hadn’t taken my dose that day. i told Carlos, who quickly got to feeding the kids their dinner so he could go out and get my refill, since by then i knew i couldn’t drive. the “zinging” sensations where enough to completely disorient me.

during the time it took to feed the boys, i got worse. my skin was crawling, i was dizzy, i was weak, my speech sounded “jittery”, i was shivering, and the “zinging” had now taken on a feeling more akin to electrocution. every time i made the slightest movement, i got zapped. every time something touched me (one of the boys, my sweater, or when i touched my glass of water to pick it up), i got zapped. every time i turned my head, not matter how little, i got zapped. it was awful.

one of the worst things were the brain flashes. every couple of minutes it was like there were suddenly thousands of camera flashes in my head. the key phrase here is “in my head“. this wasn’t something i saw with my eyes. it was the same whether i had my eyes open or closed. and if that wasn’t disturbing enough, the sound that accompanied these flashes was straight out of a horror movie. you know that metallic “schwing” sound that swords make in movies? well, it was like that crossed with an electric zapping sound.

i won’t go into the details of how our pharmacy closed earlier than we expected, and how we had to find another pharmacy that would fill my prescription with just my empty pill bottle rather than an actual doctor-written prescription. to make a long story short, it took about 3.5 hours from the time i took my missed dose to when i started to feel better. it wasn’t till the next morning that i was completely myself again.

i Googled this whole nightmare to find out that Effexor is known for its intense and torturous withdrawal symptoms.  in fact, it is said to be on par, if not worse, than the withdrawal alcoholics go through when they stop drinking. some people, even after slowly lowering their dose until they are Effexor free, have suffered dizziness and other nasty side effects for weeks after stopping the drug.

so, though i’m finally ready to try a different medication, i’m facing a long, nightmarish departure from the Effexor. i guess the silver lining here is that i’ve been given a glimpse into what it will be like so i can be prepared. i have a feeling that the start of my Effexor-weening will be timed with one of my mom’s week-long visits!

the old saying “the cure is worse than the disease” has never rung so true.

a breakfast incident

something happened at breakfast this morning that hasn’t happened in a long time. Zander threw up.

this used to be a regular occurrence. so regular, that it was daily for a while. just the hint of texture in his food would send him gagging, and he would eventually throw up his entire meal. Zander would be crying from fright, i would be crying from sheer frustration, sadness, and fear that my little boy would never grow because he couldn’t/wouldn’t eat.

this morning was a bit different. sure, he gagged at some texture and ended up losing his breakfast. but it was because we have finally been able to move him off of the pureed-to-nothingness jarred baby food fruit to normal pureed fruit cups. you know…the kind that you and i might eat as a snack. not only are they so much cheaper, they also offer the same (if not better) nutritional value of the baby food with a bit more texture. and he’s been really good at eating it, as long as we are spoon-feeding him. i think there’s a comfort thing there, and we (as well as his Psychologist) are okay with the spoon feeding thing…’cause he’s eating! i guess the texture was just a bit much for him this morning.
so when he started gagging, i calmly told him it was okay. when he threw up, i still kept my calm (i’m amazed at myself for that!) and told him it was alright. he didn’t cry, probably because i didn’t cry. the only thing he was worried about was getting the puke off him, and i don’t blame him.

whether because of my meds for my ppd, the twice-a-month meetings with Zander’s Psychologist (who has been amazingly supportive and reassuring), or because of the progress he’s made, i was able to handle this morning’s breakfast incident with out trauma to myself or my son. looking back, i realize how much progress we have made in these past few months.

this time last year, Zander would only drink milk…no solid food whatsoever. the simple action of bringing a spoonful of pureed fruit or veggies would send him gagging and throwing up what little bit of milk was in his tiny tummy. he was almost 2 years old and a mere 20 pounds…the same weight he was just after he turned a year old.

when his iron deficiency was diagnosed, we had to resort to force feeding. i would sit on the couch with Zander on my lap and pry his mouth open while hubby would spoonfeed him a concoction of pureed fruits or veggies spiked with iron-fortified cereals. he would sputter and gag. we had to hold his mouth closed so he didn’t spit it out, and i would rock him and sing to him to keep him calm until he swallowed each spoonful. i cried with almost every meal. i felt nauseous before every meal, not knowing what horror lay ahead of us this time.

looking back, it is easy to see how far he’s come. instead of force feeding, screaming, gagging and vomiting, our meals have become much more relaxed. sure, it’s still difficult to get him to eat. he’s not eating much whole food…most of it’s still pureed. but i honestly can’t remember when the last time he gagged and threw up was. he has more energy. he’s happier and less cranky. he’s gained weight (he’s up to 29 pounds y’all!). we can count on him eating something at each meal, which used to seem like an unattainable goal.

i’m so proud of my boy, and what he’s struggle through to get where he is now. after dealing with this eating disorder for over 2 years, i still can’t imagine what it’s like for him. can you imagine being scared of food, one of the very things you need to survive? i can’t fathom what that must be like, and that’s probably a good thing.

but he’s slowly but steadily overcome his fear more and more. on top of his purees, he can now eat small chunks of cheese and toast. he’ll eat pizza, french fries and potato chips…not super nutritious, but it’s the texture that counts right now. he’s even started to eat pieces of whole banana! i never thought i would see the day….

i’m beaming with pride for my 2.5 year old little boy…one of the bravest and strongest little men i know!

Wordless Wednesday – it was a bit windy last week

a milestone of the stinky kind

last night when dinner was done, Zander told us he had to “go pee pee on da toilet!”. this has actually, to our happy surprise, become a regular occurrence over the last few days.

some of you (those who followed me over from my first blog) may remember that we attempted to get Zander into the whole potty thing. he thought it was pretty neat at first, peeing in it a few times and enjoying the accolades he received when he did his thing. then the novelty wore off, and he didn’t want to have anything to do with it.

fast forward 7 months. on Friday afternoon we asked him if he wanted to sit on the potty and pee. he said yes (which surprised me since i’ve been asking him every once in a while for the past few months and the answer was always no), so we asked if he wanted to sit on the big toilet or the potty. big-boy-wannabe that he is, he wanted to sit on the toilet with his Diego toilet seat.

so off hubby and Zander go to the bathroom while i played with Logan. to be honest, i wasn’t expecting anything. in the past the only thing he has done on the toilet is waste play with the toilet paper. suddenly i hear hubby cheering, so i race to the bathroom to see big smiles on both their faces. Zander, brimming with pride, said “a peed on da toilet, mummy!”. even though he had peed on the potty before, this was different. i could tell he really understood what he had done this time…i could see it in his face and hear it in his voice.

later, after dinner, he said he had to pee on the potty, so we put him on the potty and within 30 seconds he peed. just like that. and Saturday morning, as soon as we got him out of bed, he said he had to go pee on the toilet, and he did. this has been going on since Friday. he knows he has to pee, he asks to go on the toilet or potty, and he goes. not every time, of course. the kid is so busy in Zander-world most of the day that it will take a while for him to use the potty full-time, but this is definitely an excellent start!.

what happened yesterday, however, was completely unexpected. he was sitting on the potty in front of the TV (don’t judge ;-)) after dinner. he had already had a little pee, but i knew a bigger one was coming, so i asked him to sit on it a little while longer. then he turned to look at me and said “a pooped mummy”…so matter of fact, like this was an everyday occurrence. i checked, and sure enough my son had pooped for the first time in the potty.

i have heard so many horror stories from friends and family about trying to get kids to poop on the toilet or the potty. my cousin’s daughter was so scared to do it, and later they found out that she thought her “insides” were falling out…how awful! i was just expecting….i don’t know what i was expecting, but i didn’t expecting him just to poop!

anyway, i’m realistic enough to know that he might not want to poop on the potty again for a while. but the fact that there was no trauma or anything gives me hope that it won’t be too hard.

plus he didn’t pick his poop out of the potty to show me…that’s a bonus, right?

you know your toddler watches too much Thomas when…

seriously, my kids watch too much TV. way too much. i was one of those first-time moms that didn’t let their baby watch any TV. i had read the research linking ADD and ADHD to early TV watching. we got all the Baby Einstein videos as gifts, but Zander didn’t watch them. he actually didn’t watch one second of TV until he was 8 months old. and even then, it was limited.

then came Logan. a preemie. with health problems. and special needs. Zander was a curious, newly-walking 13-month old at the time. ya, that no-TV-watching thing went right down the toilet. i freely admit that i used the TV to distract and entertain Zander while i was taking care of Logan…not that i’m proud of it.

the end result….both of them are now addicted to that stupid box. i confess, it is nice at times to get some time to myself. but i always end up feeling guilty that they are watching TV instead of having play-time with mommy…unfortunately, i need some me time some times, and that need doesn’t always correspond with their naptime.

so in an effort to to find the humour in this horrible addiction (that their mother is also afflicted with), here is a list i have compiled. (i should give credit where credit is due…Zander basically wrote the whole list…i just typed it out!)

you know your toddler watches too much Thomas and Friends when…

1. he walks around saying “bother” and “bust ma buffers!” when something goes wrong (we’re just waiting for him to add “cinders and ashes!” to his repertoire)
2. he re-enacts episodes with his train track, getting frustrated that he can’t get the track to look the same or have Thomas hang perilously from the end of a collapsed bridge (he’ll have part of the track hanging off the edge of the table, and expects Thomas to just sit there on the track at a 60 degree angle, but Thomas just slides off the plastic track and falls to the floor)
3. he asks where daddy is, mommy says he’s at work, and he nods and replies “yup…daddy work at a coal plant!” (seriously!)
4. he uses his mommy as a bridge when she is lying on her tummy on the couch, crawling back and forth on her back pretending he is Thomas…and then says “mommy makin’ a creaking sound!” (from the episode where the bridge collapsed…the bridge made a creaking sound)
5. he is watching Thomas and Friends and one of the engines has an accident because of their freight cars and he turns around, shakes his head and says “trouble-a trucks!” (translation – troublesome trucks)
6. he declares his cheese “dirty”, and you tell him that it’s just crumbs from his toast, to which he suggests “cheese be’er go to da wash down!”
7. he asks if we can get his Thomas train a “night cap” for when he goes to sleep..like the Thomas on TV has
8. he sees a picture in a book of someone who is mad, he says they are “cross”
9. he hears daddy coming down the stairs and mommy says “who’s coming?”, he replies “Skarloey!”
10. he’s play with his Thomas engine and track, and he says to himself “oh…a be’er change da points!”
11. he can recognize all the engines in his colouring books, even though their are artist renditions and there are no colours to help him distinguish them…sometimes it’s just their faces
12. you draw him a train and when you are done he looks up at you and asks “where i’ da coal tender?”
13. your reading him one of his Thomas books, and you point to a blue engine and say “oh look, there’s Edward”, to which he replies “no mommy! dat Gordon!” with a tone of disgust and a look of utter disappointment
14. he names each bite of food after the engines on the show before he will eat them
15. he is watching Thomas and Friends and one of the connect-the-dots segments comes on…and he tells you which engine it is before they even start connecting the damn dots
16. you say “Thomas” and he says “he da cheeky one!” (from the theme song)
17. we’re out and about and mommy says “we’re going to go home now” and he replies “to Tidmouth Sheds!”
18. he asks you to help him build a track, and you ask him what he wants, to which he replies “i need fwee bwanch lines!” (translation – three branch lines)
19. he will bring his Thomas engine over to you and proceed to point out “this i’ da tall funnel, da dome, da whistle, da cab, da drive wheels, da coal tender, da buffers,……”
20. he can name every. frickin’. engine. and their numbers. even the ones i don’t remember ever seeing.