Monday, August 22, 2011

One week to go

I'm having surgery in one week. It's amazing to me how quickly time is going all of the sudden. At first it seemed like the longest process ever. I got the referral from my doctor back in November of 2010. And here it is, more than nine months later. But time is going quickly now. I'm on a mostly liquid diet. It sucks. I don't like it. But, I'll be on a liquid diet and then a pureed diet for a month after surgery so I guess it's time to suck it up and get used to it huh?

Besides trying to get everything in the house ready, (dinner plans for Jeff and easy stuff in the freezer, daycare arranged for the day of surgery so Jeff can go with me, day care for Amelia after school, ) and on top of it we'll have family staying with us a week after my surgery. I'm just nervous about all of it, and I'd like to just curl up in a ball somewhere with a book or something and forget about all of this. But, I can't. So I'll just vent here, and carry on. My goal for today is to get the dining room floor scrubbed. Because of course, I can't have dirty grout when I go to the hospital right? lmao. Okay, back to my neurotic cleaning now. :-D

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Random Ramblings.. (ie brain dump w/random pictures)



School has begun. And if I thought our summer was busy, wow. Amelia started school last week. So every morning we all get up, get dressed, make lunches and drop Mia off at school. The other local school district is still on summer vacation, so Anthony and I still go to the park every day for lunch. (Gotta love free lunch in the park. Not because it's free, but because I don't have to make the boy lunch! lol) So we play for an hour or so, then come back home. We usually have an hour and a half till it's time to pick Amelia up. Being in first grade means she gets picked up with the rest of the school, not at noon with just the kindergarten. This means, we have to get there 20 minutes early if I want to park closer to the school than just being at our house would be. If there weren't so many free roaming dogs in that neighborhood I'd just walk to the school every day. Id rather avoid the packs of wild chihuahuas though so we drive the mile and a half most of the time. So after we pick Amelia up we come home, and she whines and cries the whole way that she's hungry and she's tired. Then somewhere between school and our garage, it's revealed that lunch was just too short and all she ate was a carrot, or some cherries, or one day she managed to eat her Trader joe's gogurt. So we get in the house, and she eats her whole lunch. At 3:30.



Anthony is usually wound up by now too. So two days a week we get everyone changed and head out to drop Amelia off at one of her after school activities. It's an hour long. Of course they changed her other class time and day so it now follows the first class. If it's not a karate/cheerleading night then we come and do homework. Then it's dinner time, clean up from dinner, walk the dog, take care of the yard, bathe the kids, get them in bed, fold a load of laundry and I fall into bed somewhere in there too. I thought when Amelia started school, things would be less hectic with her at school 6.5 hours a day. I think I was wrong! lol. And it will only get more hectic when Anthony starts preschool in September. I'll drop one kid off, run across town to drop the other off, have two hours of free time to frantically clean my house, then go pick one kid up, have a few more hours, and pick up the other one. I'm thinking things will calm down in a few years when Anthony is in first grade. lol. Have you all noticed that I keep saying things will calm down when... I don't think we're ever going to get there. Of course J can't wait for me to go back to work, or at least that's how it seems. So the plan is once Anthony is in school I'll go back to school. Then things will be really hectic! lol. I think I'm going to have to get the kids and hubby trained to do chores before I do school for me though. I can't see them all coming home each night making a healthy dinner, doing homework, cleaning up and doing the night time routine, while I'm at class. I can't even get any of them to put their dishes in the dishwasher or their laundry in the hamper. lol.





So my surgery date got pushed back. It's now the week before Jeff's family comes for a visit. Eep. I'm nervous about how that's going to go over. I don't necessarily recover well, and I generally don't want people in my space when I'm sick. Hopefully it will all go well and J and the kids can keep them all entertained and I can hide in my room and be in pain alone. lol This surgery involved a lot of messing with digestion and stuff, so it's pretty common for a lot of vomiting. I'll also basically be on a baby food diet for a month or so after surgery. I'm not looking forward to trying out new foods and my bodies reaction to them all with company. Oh well, it will be nice to see everyone even if I can't participate in the trips to the beach and such.



We got Anthony a new bed. Not sure if I posted about that or not. It's a big tall loft bed and so far he's doing great with it. It gives him a ton more room in his bedroom so that's cool. And he's more cautious than Amelia, so i think I trust him more with a tall bed, even if he is way younger. I'm afraid I'd find Amelia jumping off the top if it was in her room.





Hmm what else has been going on. OH! Amelia and I visited my friend's church. It was lovely. It's this huge old church right in the middle of LA. Loved it. Totally random to look up in the middle of church and see someone that you've watched on TV the week before, but that's LA I guess. I really enjoyed the service. It's been a long time since I went to church and felt comfortable. I've never not believed in God, but I've had bad experiences with people being judgmental and hateful and using God as an excuse to be that way. I won't teach my kids that it's okay to hate. So anyway Amelia has been asking about God a lot, so I thought this would be good for her. She had fun and I did too. I think we'll definitely be back. I think it's a little far to go to have this church become our home church but it's nice to visit. And of course it was fun to hang out with my friend too.



So as part of my presurgery diet, I have had to cut most starch out of my diet. Um, it's not fun. Goodbye bread, chips, tortillas, pasta and rice. Its actually not as bad as I thought it would be, the hardest part is making stuff for the kids and smelling it and not being able to eat it. I made Anthony some whole wheat toast the other day and after I cooked it and buttered it, it smelled so yummy! Funny how that works. Other than that day though it's been okay. And my energy levels are much better too, less up and down.



Speaking of energy, I decided to paint our dining room table this weekend. So far it's going ok. Chairs are done minus the seat covers, and they look good. The table top not so much. It was not in good shape when I started and I just didn't sand it enough. I really need to buy a belt sander I think. But we always have a table cloth on the table anyway, so it will just get covered back up anyway. I'll post a picture when it's all done. After surgery, when I have more time, I'll get a belt sander, sand the heck out of it, then reprime and paint and just redo the table top.

Okay, I think I'm done rambling now. Brain dump over. :-) Happy Saturday everyone.

Saturday, August 06, 2011

Where did the summer go?

I found this poem online somewhere this morning and it totally sums up how I feel about the end of summer. My babies aren't really babies any more. With both kids home all summer, my house feels like it's in a constant state of messiness. I could have spent more time mopping and less time taking them to story times at the library. I could have spent more time knocking down cobwebs and less time taking them to the beach. I could have spent more time doing laundry and less time at the park. But, I didn't. And as summer vacation draws to a close, I'm okay with that.

Song For a Fith Child, by Ruth Hamilton. 1958

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
hang out the washing and butter the bread,
sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
and out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
but I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
for children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.