Flu Shot Anxiety

On Monday evening, on a typical hot chocolate drive, James and I talked about the H1N1 Flu Shot. It's been a topic of much conversation among my neighbors and friends as we hear reports of six hour waits at flu shot clinics. The general consensus among my peers has been that they were not going to get themselves or their kids the flu shot. The shot seemed rushed, they didn't have time to properly test it in the push to get an immunization to the public and in general people felt like the media has overhyped the whole h1n1 pandemic. I'm not against flu shots, but I've never gotten one in the past and I didn't feel any need to get one now. and that's what James and I concluded from our Monday evening drive.

Until 12am Tuesday morning when K woke up with a fever.

Suddenly my head is full of all the information that the fear-mongering mass media has been sharing. So despite having seen K in feverish condition every cold and flu season, I find myself in a state of panic and paranoia. All the conviction I felt in the car ride about not getting the flu shot flew out the window and I am devastated now that I can't get the shot, can't take him out to sit for the six hours at a clinic.

I called into Health Link where the nurse assessed K over the phone. Questions like, "Are his lips blue?", "Is he confused, does he know where he is?" are not calming my panic. But with no symptoms other than a fever and sore throat she promptly directed my to their website for "home care" instructions (which I'd had already read before calling in). So all night I'm on him like a hawk, and with every cough, sniffle, whimper, even though I'm telling myself it's only a cold, that panic grows.

This morning K's fever is gone, but a runny nose and mild cough have come in its place. And although I'm not feeling as panicked, I'm definitely not the 'laissez faire' parent I have been in flu-seasoned past.

So now I'm not sure what the best route to take is. Do I wait til he's feeling better and take the whole family in for the vaccine? Do we withdraw ourselves from all social situations and just bunker down until the hysteria dies down? or do we just carry on as normal with some extra hand sanitizer?

Alberta adds clinics as H1N1 death toll rises

Health Canada takes word of others H1N1 vaccine safe

SNOWDAY!!

I read a post on a friend's blog (walkonthewildeside.blogspot.com) where she talked about seeing the kids' schoolyard spotted with snowmen and snowforts and she took a moment to be grateful that imagination is still alive in a time of video games and computers. So when we were hit with a mini blizzard on Saturday morning I was determined to take the opportunity to have some free, quality time with the family. Outside it was warm, and the snow was sticky, (perfect snowmen weather!) so we all bundled up and played in the yard.


One of the families down the street already had their snowman under construction, four layers high, they were using a ladder to add the finishing touches. Not to be outdone James started work on the biggest (fattest) snowman I'd ever seen. He literally cleared the snow from out yard, it was all in the snowman!


K loved it outside. With the help of his dump truck he transported loads of snow and helped pack whatever he didn't eat onto the snowman. He also made his own little snow blob right next to the big one, and added buttons for the eyes and a carrot for the nose (which he promptly ate prior to any photo opportunity).


C is getting used to the snow, but its not really his thing. When K was a toddler he used to (and still does come to think of it) just lay face down in the snow. C, on the other hand, has a major meltdown any time his skin comes into actual contact with the white stuff. he gets frustrated that he can't walk easily, and his mittens make picking up the snow rather difficult. For most of our snowman adventure he just sat under our tree with his bucket, and cried any time a piece of snow fell from the branches above. Poor kid.



The finished snowman was great! K had a blast, so did James and I, and C did okay :) Check K out in this photo, he's taking a big bite out of the snowman! (Seriously, if you read my mealtime battles post this is just further proof of his tendency to eat everything in sight UNLESS its on the dinner plate!) The weather warmed up really quickly, by that evening the snowman looked more like it belonged in Calvin and Hobbes Snowmen House of Horror. Poor guy, writhing as he melts.

Oh well, we had a blast, hope you enjoy the pics.

Fineprint: The Meal-Time Battles

As my mom can surely attest to, growing up I was the pickiest eater around. I survived for a year on chicken noodle soup and Vegetable Thins crackers, not because of a lack of wonderful home cooked meals, but because any attempt to feed me something new resulted in an hour at the table filled with tears, tantrums, and likely gagging as I filled my mouth with milk with every swallow. It was awful.

Because of my personal history I have approached cooking for my children with the expectation that majority of my dishes will not meet my children's approval, and I'm okay with that. Ketchup has become my weapon of choice in the dinnertime battle, because most things if drenched in ketchup will make it past the taste test. K is way worse than C. C will eat most of what's presented as long as no vegetable is within sight. And I'm okay with this. Usually I can sneak in some fruit slices or a yogurt onto the plate and I tell myself that this portion of healthy food will offset the not-so-healthy frozen fish sticks or kraft dinner. I signed up for mealtime battles, it was all part of the contract, but I missed the fine print.

See, the thing that gets me, the part that actually does hurt my ego, is that my kids will basically eat anything that they find. For over a year K would sneak a piece of dog food every time my back was turned. I can't make him stop eating snow despite the frequest leaves and dirt and "other" items that he's swallowed in the process. I've actually seen him lick the dog. And C's just as bad. Granted he's only 17 months, but last weekend, visiting friends, he not once but twice found a piece of sidewalk chalk to chomp down on and made a huge tantrum when I took it away.

So it begs the question, is my cooking really so awful that the critics would rather eat crayons than try a spoonful of soup? Is my pizza so terrible that an after dinner dog biscuit is preferable?

I'm sure like everything else it's a phase. Most 10 year olds will clear a plate of "normal" food...right? and I guess I always have a fall-back: 10 years of a rotating meal plan of Kraft Dinner and Macaroni & Cheese. It might not be my ideal menu, but it sure beats kibbles and bits :)

You'll Never Guess What My Kids Are Up To

It's not even 10am and I'm sitting down to enjoy a nice chai tea latte. It's warm and I haven't even had to reheat it the typical three times. How is this possible? Why have I had this rare opportunity to actually take a breath a enjoy a quiet, solitary moment. My children are (dramatic pause) playing with each other. Actually playing. They are in K's room, playing with trains. Sharing. and its been going on for nearly an hour.

It started when C started crying to announce he was wake and ready to start his day. Too lazy to drag myself out of bed, I asked K to go say hi to his brother. K begrudgingly marched into C's room and announced in his growly "dinosaur" voice, "These are my trains and you can't have them" (translation: "Good morning"). But then something shifted. The dinosaur voice gave way to his regular, pleasant K voice, and I smiled as K explained to his brother how he had found his Thomas trains this morning and then went into his room.

Then K brought two of his trains for C to play with, and then invited him into his room to play. And they did. They played. No crying. No fighting. All I can hear is giggling and K telling his brother all the ins and outs of the Sodor trains and C babbling back. This is the moment that I had in my mind when I found out I was having two boys. This is the moment that gives me hope that they might actually grow up and like each other, that maybe the all the pinching and hitting and kicking and pushing will evolve into something that looks more like friendship.

Okay okay, overkill maybe. And now there's C crying, and K shouting "that's not funny". My perfect moment is over. My tea is still only half drunk. But it happened, and maybe it'll happen again. For today, that's enough for me.

Mommy on a Mission...well Almost

Last night after supper, with two hours left til bedtime, we decided to pack up the kidlets and go rent a movie. As often happens, K passed out in his carseat within minutes of hitting the road, so rather than waking him and hauling the cranky crew through the store, I decided to go in myself and quickly scour the shelves for the night's entertainment. The store was quiet, only a few customers, a Dad with a young daughter, and few single renters like myself.

As I got to the new release wall I overheard two employees talking loudly while they restocked the shelves. Apparently some passive aggressive customer had grabbed fistfulls of the older movies and thrown them in on the new release shelf. The employee who discovered the pile of rogue movies was angry to say the least. He went off on a (loud) rant about this amount of work it would be to restock the old movies, and ended his tangent by saying "&%$#, I hate my life".

Now, my first real job was working at a video store, actually, the same family video store I was in last night. I once opened the store to discover that some clever individual had urinated in the return slot the night before so that an entire bin of soaked movies had to be sorted through and repackaged. Bearing this in mind, a dozen old movies thrown in with the new releases really didn't rank that high on the annoying scale, and certainly didn't qualify for an f-bomb.

Thankfully K wasn't with me in the store. If he had been then it would have been a different situation. But it did make me stop and think. See, I remember working my first customer service focused jobs, and really liking it. I remember feeling proud when I did my job well, smiling and greeting, going above and beyond. Sure, I wasn't perfect, I was a boppy 16 year old who probably spent just as much time gossiping as working. But I can promise you one thing, I was there to do my job well, and I never had a complaint, not even one. So it seems to follow that one of two situations had occured:

Situation 1: Common sense and Common courtesy are really not that common at all. Time and time again I've gone shopping with my two kidlets in tow, only to have to listen to stock clerks discussing the latest party, (with plenty of colorful expletives), or gotten attitude when asking a question, or gone through an entire transaction without so much as a hello from the clerk.

Situation 2: I have turned into a crotchety lady well before it was due. I'm sure everyone has encountered that customer who is just mad. And it wouldn't matter what you did or said, they'd find a reason to be mad.

Last night at the video store I bit my tongue. Maybe I should have said something to that clerk. I thought of speaking to a manager (although I later found out he was the supervisor on shift), I thought of calling the office and making a stink, but I didn't. I didn't want to make waves, my child wasn't there, no harm no foul...right? But maybe I should have. Maybe I should have been a moral warrior, a Mommy with a mission. What would you have done?

What Ever Happened to Soap Operas and Bon Bons

So I'm finally giving in and starting a blog. Its kind of the 'in thing' to do, or at least that what I've heard. I've thought long and hard about what I would write, what is so interesting in my life that someone else would care to hear it. And the answer to that question truthfully, is nothing.

There's nothing particularly unique about my day-to-day life. I'm a work at home mom, with two young boys. I make the beds, fix breakfast, clean and clothe my toddler and preschooler, I read books, and do crafts, clean the house and buy the groceries, and if I find the time, maybe squeeze in a shower and watch some Oprah. But sometimes, in those rare, quiet moments, I get time to really think, and so often the thought that creeps up on me is, "How did I get here?"

Look at my Mom, she made it look easy. We ate at home almost every night, and to real, homemade dinners. Fast food was a treat, not a routine. Our house was clean, so were us kids, and she never appeared frazzled. So when I signed up for the position of Mommy, it was a no brainer. I always knew I wanted to stay home with my kids. From a very young age I had the desire to be a stay-at-home mom. My mother stayed home to raise my brother and me, her mom stayed home and raised her. It was the natural path, not even a choice really. I'd done well in school and at my jobs. Whatever I tried I excelled at. I loved kids and cooking, I knew how to do laundry and clean a house, so really, how much work would it be? Right?

But oh when that illusion is shattered. When the dogs won't stop whining and the kids won't stop barking, the "homemade dinner" of Kraft dinner is burning on the stove as my Blackberry vibrates to let me know another email has arrived...that's when it hits me.

What if this isn't a 'natural path' at all?

What if its not easy?

What ever happened to soap operas and bon bons?

To be fair, I love my kids. I am so incredibly grateful that I CAN be home with them. But there are days. There are days when I just have to laugh at where I am. University educated, strong, confident woman, desperately negotiating with my three year old to keep his shirt on while he poops. And I have to think, I cannot be the only mommy out there who feels like this, who wonders, "How did I get here?"

So that's what my blog will be. My blog will be a place that I can finally admit that my house isn't actually organized, and that I didn't brush my hair this morning, and that my son's socks don't match. And hopefully, somehow through the anonymity of the internet, someone out there will tell me that they feel the same way.