March Break Misnomer

Okay parents, I'm sure some of you are with me on this one.

Today is the Sunday following March Break.  I know that March Break is supposed to be a break for the kids.  Really, I think it's a break for the poor teachers who tirelessly deal with our kids every day!  But what it definitely is not is a break for the parents.  Well unless you're the family who takes time off work and travels to do something fun (and often expensive) over March Break.  We're not that family.

We have a swell daycare that takes our kids for March Break and Christmas holidays, plus PA days and all that.  She's great, the kids love her, and life is good there.  But there's something about these non-school days that makes me feel like we, the parents, should be trying to spend time with our kids when they're not at school.

This year we had sick kids over March Break.  Isn't it disappointing how often that happens?  So the Friday before the break one kiddo came home sick, then the other kid came down with it the Thursday of the break.  Luckily the second bout didn't include the vomiting that the first one did.

Since I have Wednesdays off, and there was no dance class for myself or my kids this week, I picked them up early from daycare and took them to see Little Ray's Reptile show here at the mall.  They love all the critters there.  I don't love the other kids in the way of my photos, or running around screaming through the mall.

My hubby's birthday often falls during March Break (and it did so again this year.)  He has an aversion to working on his birthday - and he usually has vacation days to use up this time of year - so he "stayed home" the Thursday and Friday of March Break.  He kept the girls home on Thursday - his actual birthday.  Well, "kept them home" isn't really what happened.  Despite Emma not feeling well, they went and did a build at Home Depot.  I think now he's stuck taking them to the builds there whenever they happen.  The girls loved it!

But despite the fun days, life is crazy busy all the time and that doesn't stop for March Break.  Sometimes trying to fit in fun around work schedules is so much more exhausting than the status quo of all the other weeks of the year.  Throw in some days when the kids are under-the-weather and life just doesn't really flow well at all.

I, for one, will be happy to get back to the busy "normal" weeks I'm used to.  Well, until next week when we have to start getting ready for Emma's next Fashion Show!

How was your March Break?  Go anywhere fun?  See anything cool?  Share with me in the comments!

~Jess

Moms and Migraines

This morning I woke up feeling like someone was scooping out my frontal lobe with an ice cream scoop. Not a nice image - and not really a nice feeling either. Despite the pain, I chose to get up and start my morning. Looking back, I think maybe that was a mistake.

I put my coffee on, eldest daughter came downstairs without prodding from me - always a bonus - and I got her started on breakfast. I also pulled out the fruit I thought younger daughter would eat, and I had a few pieces. I also had a big glass of water - sometimes the headaches are a dehydration symptom. I don't think the food was such a good idea either.

At this point every movement was sending shooting pains from my forehead through my skull and out the back of my head. I chose to go back upstairs and poke younger daughter. Luckily she was mostly awake, so I went and laid down. I knew that what little food I ate was not going to stay where I put it, but I also knew it wasn't imminently going to dislodge itself. Oh, and I had taken some ibuprofen as well.

Little miss number two came into my room on her way downstairs, and I suggested she grab a muffin when she gets down there. I was pretty sure getting back up was going to be a bad idea. I'm lucky I have a spouse who can take over morning duties on those (thankfully very few) days where I just can't do it.

The rest of the morning is a bit of a blur. I did have to throw up in the garbage can when hubby was in the bathroom and I was in the kitchen helping kiddos get organized to go out the door. I had actually gotten up to look for my Tryptans (migraine pills). So I think the ibuprofens went out that way, but I did feel better for a bit and so I took the migraine pill and then went back to bed after the kids went off to the bus.

After such a fun experience I came up with a few words of wisdom for other moms (or dads!) who also find themselves occasionally afflicted with such lovely things as migraines:

• Ask for help! - Get your spouse (if applicable) to do more.  Or call your parents/friends/anyone you know who'd help you out.  The more you try to do, the worse you can feel.  It's okay to ask for help.
• Take drugs! - If you have a prescription for your migraines, take it!  My parents and hubby are good at reminding me to do this.  Or take some ibuprofen or acetaminophen.  And take it with lots of water - see my dehydration comment above.
• Caffeine can help - if you're addicted to your morning coffee or tea (or other beverage), try to have some.  I made my coffee this morning but I didn't drink it until 2 hours later, minutes after the pot turned off it's burner.
• Go back to bed - after you take something to help move your headache along, try for some more rest.  It worked for me this morning, but it doesn't always work.
• Try to do very little, even it you're feeling better - I fall into this trap all the time.  I stay home from work with a brutal headache but then I lay in bed and think about all the things I could be doing if only I felt a little better.  Those things can wait.  You can't look after everything and everyone else if you don't look after yourself!
• Get some fresh air - Say you're feeling a bit better (like the ice pick has been removed and every step is not causing excruciating stabs through your brain).  Take a short walk outside.  If it's sunny and the light is hurting your eyes, you're likely not "better" enough to leave the house yet, but if you think you can handle it, stroll around the block.  This perked me up today too, although that's also because it was 10 degrees outside!

Keep in mind these are all suggestions and I am not a doctor - I just speak from experience.  If you suffer the same affliction and have other tips, please share with me in the comments!

By 2pm the headache was gone, and so was the foggy brain feeling.  I could have gone to work for a few hours, by at this point in the day it's really not worth it.  Lets hope this fun doesn't occur again tomorrow...

~Jess

My Disrupted 'Me Day'

Wednesdays are my day for me.  I'm (usually) home, husband and kid free, for most of the day.  I use this time to do laundry, sometimes tackle an organizing project or area of the house, do some other random cleaning (or baking!), and on a good day also throw in some exercise time.  Oh, and I have at least one show I watch recorded from earlier in the week that I catch up on on a Wednesday.

This has been my schedule for a while now.  When I'm home alone I feel like I can be so much more productive.  And now I schedule in blog stuff on Wednesdays as well.  I aim to create one post and do 2 hours of reading of books I've been asked to review.  Oh, and I try to sift through Twitter and FB feeds of other people (and blogs) I enjoy, as well as visiting my influencer-style websites I've joined.  My days are pretty full up now, I guess, after I see it all written out!

Anyway, this past Wednesday started out just fine.  I shovelled out the end of the driveway (with hubbys help) and then I came in and had ice cream for breakfast - with bananas so it wasn't a total fail! - while I watched my show.  After that I spent a few minutes online, browsing through Twitter and other blog-related pages, and half-assed watching another show on tv.  And then hubby came home.

It's not especially abnormal for him to come home occasionally during the day.  Sometimes he needs lunch, or he forgot something, or he just had a half hour to spare between jobs.  But this week he was HOME.  As in not going anywhere.  And it wasn't even lunch time!  I hadn't done anything (besides the hefty load of shovelling) but put some laundry in and watch some tv.  I thought I might go for a walk with the camera and see what snow-related beauty I could find. (Did I mention we'd had almost 50cms of snow the day before?)

So that disrupted my whole day.  I didn't know what to do.  Do I make him lunch, or go ahead and have that entire freezer pizza I'd planned to eat myself?  Should I pretend to look more busy than I was?  I don't think he knows how much stuff I do checking up on all my blog related sites and pages and influencer stuff.  It just looks like I'm wasting time on the net (which I'm sometimes doing too.)

And then he wants to talk to me.  I'm trying to be wife-y and sit near him while I'm reading my book and he's "working" on his computer - which I'll say looks to me like what I'm sure I look like to him when I'm trying to catch up on other people's blogs and stuff - but then he wants to talk.  Not saying I don't like talking to him, but I'm reading here!  And for reviews even, so can I just sit and read?

Then we get the call that Rose is not feeling well at school.  So we collect her and bring her home, but at least she then goes to bed and sleeps for an hour or more.  But now I feel my day is shot.  It's 2pm, I've only got one load of laundry through, we might as well meet Emma at the bus so we don't have to schlep over to daycare later to collect her, and I'm thinking about what time I should start dinner so it's ready to eat before we have to take miss Emma to dance class.

My saving grace was actually being the chauffeur parent, and taking Emma to her Wednesday night dance classes (for 2 hours!)  I managed to sit quietly with some other Moms also doing work and finish reading my book and create my review.  I even got a chapter into my next book!  My dance teacher and some of the ladies from the Monday night adult ballet class thought I should join them for the Wednesday adult ballet (which is a level above what I do on Mondays) but I'm not ready.  I do love to watch them though!

Moral of the story?  Don't put too much stock into alone time - it doesn't always work out like you hoped it would!  At least not when you're a parent.  I survived my day, and did feel accomplished at the end of it.  And it gave me fodder for a blog post - so win win!

Leave me a comment about your botched "me time" plans (or lack of plans), or just say hi so I know you read this to the end!  Thanks loyal readers.

~Jess

When Parents Get Sick - An Introspective

Having sick kids is tough.  Being a sick parent can be much tougher.  (Is tougher a word?  I'm not sold on it.)

Our house had about 4 days of sick daughters.  Fever, lethargy, vomit, the whole bit.  Then they got better!  Yay!  The plague has moved on!  As the primary parent (and all I mean by that is the one who is routinely at home more often and therefore able to do more household chores and all that) I took it upon myself to wash all the sheets, all the barf buckets and whatever else I thought might keep us from re-developing this particular plague.

Fast-forward a few days to my busy Christmas Party weekend.  Hubby's party and my work party routinely fall on the same weekend - luckily we do Sundays and they do Saturdays.  Usually it works out pretty well.

This year, not so much.  We had lunch on Saturday with the family after the newest cousin's baptism but I didn't feel my sandwiches sitting quite right.  Regardless I went ahead and ate, and then got ready later in the day and hubby and I went out to his party.

It was a good time - roast beef buffet, wine, and good company.  Until my dinner and drinks did not like their accommodations.  It was so bad I threw up twice at the venue.  Went home, threw up a few more times and then slept.

Sunday morning I had to get up with the girls (at 6:30, of course.)  This is all routine with us - I thought I was alright after a night's sleep.  I stayed up for half an hour and that was all I could manage.  I ate 2 tiny pieces of fruit and I had to go lay down.  That was pretty much the last time I saw the girls until Monday morning, in those precious few moments before school.

I couldn't get myself together well enough to do anything that Sunday.  Every time I tried to do anything, or if I managed to eat a few crumbs of something, I had to go lay down.  For at least an hour at a stretch.  I was so glad the girls were out for the day.  I even had to skip out on my work Christmas party.  That really bummed me out.

Hubby collected the girls from their Nanny day while I was upstairs sleeping off another smidgen of food I thought I should eat.  I didn't see them, they didn't ask to see me, and when I awoke he had just finished getting them down so I didn't dare peek at them yet.  Cue the mom guilt!

Overall I missed 3 nights in a row with my children and, rather than it feeling like an escape, it was a huge guilt burden for me.  Of course the kids have no idea - I tried to tell them I was sorry for not being there for 3 bedtimes and they just looked at me like I was weird for apologizing.  That didn't stop me from having a tear or two in my sentimental mom moment the girls didn't know I was having.

Being sick sucks - did I say that already?  Luckily when I felt better I saw that hubby and the girls did a good job of looking after each other.  Sure, there were dishes in the sink, and the laundry wasn't magically done or anything like that, but overall the house was still standing and all the advents hadn't been opened, and even Elf on the Shelf had managed to find a new resting place each day.

What happens in your house when one or (god forbid!) both parents are under the weather?  Do routines have to change?  Do the kids leave you alone to rest up?  Share your experiences in the comments below!

How Kids Change Your Sleep Habits

When I was young I could sleep through anything.  I never heard my sister calling out or talking in her sleep (unless I wasn't asleep yet.)  Once we were camping and there was a thunderstorm so intense it shook the ground - everyone else woke up (we were sleeping in a tent) and I missed the whole thing,  That made me mad because I love thunderstorms - I did even when I was a kid!

Now I can't sleep through any tiny sound my children make.  I definitely think it's a biological parent thing.  I call it "Mom sleep" although I'm sure Dads suffer from this as well.  Although definitely not in my household...

I can still sleep through storms or other disturbances in the night, but I cannot sleep though noises my offspring make in the nighttime.  Especially when they are sick, as was the case this week.  I'm sure my "mom anxiety" is partly to blame for this lovely sleep disturbance.


Any noise (a cough, an excessive rustle of bedclothes, a door opening) is cause for me to be instantly wide awake.  Both my girls used to have no compunction about throwing up in bed, all over themselves and all the bedding, and even on their toys. So gross!

My eldest still doesn't wake up fully before the need to vomit overcomes her - I'm sure this is the cause of my "Mom sleep" from early on.  She used to cry until she threw up as a very small toddler - back in the controlled "cry it out" and "sleep training" days.  Although now that I think of it I co-slept with my first child, and I'm sure for the first year of her life I slept in a continual state of "Mom sleep" where I would close my eyes but never fall into a good sleep.  I was always so exhausted back then!

When my second child was born she was a pro sleeper.  No co-sleeping required.  As a result I had to move her out of my room (she was in a bassinett) very early on.  Her asleep rustling disturbed my sleep so much that I would lay awake listening to her breathing and moving slightly, waiting for her to wake up to nurse.  She slept so much longer in a stretch right from birth than my first did in her entire first 4 months of life.  Once I moved her to "her" room my sleep quality increased dramatically!

Between bouts of sick children I am revelling in my sleep.  There are no more diapers, training pants, or nighttime accidents.  There is rarely a need to get up in the night.  The girls will even get up and pee and then go back to bed without any outside assistance.  I'm loving it!

But what that really means is I'm way out of practice when I do have to get up in the night - especially multiple times, or for 3 or 4 nights in a row.  I actually thought I would fall asleep in the middle of my workday this week because my girls were sick and I was only getting about 4 hours of "real" sleep while everyone was quiet in the night.

Do you suffer from "Mom sleep"? (even if you're a dad!)  How do you deal with sick kids in the night?  Any tricks to train older kids to the cues of their body (so they don't barf everywhere!)?  Please share with me in the comments!!

7 Things I Forget When September Rolls Around Again

Back to school is always a busy time.  It was busier than normal for me this year because little Rose started JK this year.  She seems to be enjoying it so far.  No fights with either of them in the mornings (yet - I'm sure they'll happen somewhere along the way.)

This September I've managed to forget everything we were doing in June, as it pertained to school.  Here are a few of things I forgot about during the carefree days of summer this year:

1. The bus comes early.  And I mean really early.  We have to leave the house by 7:40 so we aren't late.  So I have to get the kids up at 6:30.  That is also early.
2. My kids don't really eat lunch.  During the lazy days of summer they often just graze, and we don't have to prepare a "main course" style lunch.  At school I've had notes sent home in the past that suggested Emma didn't have a "lunch" when I packed many different snack options in the hope she'd actually eat something.  So far this year lunch has gone alright. *fingers crossed*
3. Library days (and library books).  Emma managed to lose track of her first book she brought home from the school library this year.  Luckily we located it, but where do I keep these books that are "theirs" but not "ours" without losing them in the mountains of books we have at home?
4. How tired kids can be after being at school all day.  I'm pretty sure Rose could go to bed at 6 most nights now.  Granted, she's still adjusting to the whole school idea, and a 6pm bedtime would be a 5am wake-up so we won't go there, but she's so tired!
5. How small my big kids are.  Rose in a backpack looks so tiny!  And once you put a full lunch pail, her communication book and a water bottle in there she can barely walk in it.  But also it's super cute.
6. Germs!  We are two weeks into school and we've already had one bout of night-time vomiting, and right now both girls are working on colds.  Now my kids go to daycare during the summer months full time, so I feel like we should be somewhat immune to the early colds, but we're not.  Also I work in a pharmacy so I must bring home all sorts of crazy bugs, but still September is the start of everyone rotating through colds all fall and winter.

What school- or routine-related things trip you up in September?  I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who lets things slide until 2 days before school starts, am I?  I am actually surprised how smoothly things have been going so far this year. *touch wood*  Now we're amping back up into ballet lessons, and this modelling stuff has events right now so I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed in all of the extra-curriculars as well.  I know it will all become routine before long, it's just a matter of getting settled into it, right??

Don't Sick Kids Break Your Heart?

Eldest daughter was sick on Canada Day.  Bummer, eh?  Weird thing - she was sick on Canada Day last year too.  That's not a trend I'd like to continue.

Her day started out ok, although she didn't eat much breakfast.  That's weird because she'll eat half her day's calories at breakfast most mornings.  By lunch time she was laying around - like too exhausted to keep her head up.  And she was flushed, all not a good sign.

I gave her some acetaminophen since she told me her throat hurt.  I think modern medicine is fabulous.  She perked back up, her fever settled a bit and we managed to move through some more of the day.

As you may know, we were having family over and there was fence building going on for our Canada Day celebrations.  We ladies took the kids downtown to an Art Festival/Sale which they were very keen to go to, but tired of in about 20 minutes.  Especially Eldest who was starting to flag again by this time.  I love wandering through these things, and we saw some people we knew - also fun.  But we quickened our pace as I was afraid we may be moving toward Eldest being "actually" sick.

Both kids fell asleep in the car on the way home.  Then they both went to bed for naps for the rest of the afternoon.  There is something so peaceful about sleeping children - especially when you know they aren't feeling well.  You can just picture their little cells all at war inside their little bodies while they sleep.  But after 2 hours of nap I knew they needed to get up.  It was after 5pm by this time.

Younger daughter got up with just a bit of protest - Eldest needed to be removed from our bed and carried downstairs.  She was not feeling well at all.  I gave her more acetaminophen but even that didn't perk her up.  Then I suggested a bath.  Well, after 5 minutes in the tub she yells out at me (because her ears were under water), "I guess all I needed was a bath!  I feel better!!"  So she relaxed in there for 20 minutes and then came back downstairs all pepped back up.

It's so nice to see them perk up after all the lethargy of being sick.  Both the girls stayed up well past their bedtimes, but went to bed alright when I finally got them there.  And they slept in somewhat the next morning.

Eldest was not in a good way the following morning again.  She stayed home with Dad while I had to go to work.  I took Youngest to Day Care then returned to get my stuff in order to go to work.  Eldest was very sad I could not stay home with her.  I know most of it was the fever talking, but it broke my heart when she let loose with the tears.

However, when I returned home in the evening (after a few messages back and forth with Dad during the day) I found Eldest sitting at the end of the driveway just waiting for me to get home.  She seemed to be doing pretty good, and told me she wasn't sick at all!  But she also needed a giant hug because she hadn't seen me all day.  Boy kids sometimes can be super cute!

There's nothing quite like the Mom Guilt of leaving a kid sick at home, even though you know full well whomever is there (Dad, Grandma, Auntie) will take extra special care of them while you can't be there.  Looks like I had nothing to worry about in this case.  After some morning quiet time (tv and couch resting) she was fine.  They went out to do some stuff, then I guess she rested a bit more in the afternoon but then was up and peppy and we haven't looked back since.

In my view, it was a long 2 days, but now things are on the up and up.  I'd better get Eldest to bed before much longer.  She should still have the chance to get some extra rest if she needs it.  And I'm feeling like I could use some extra rest myself!

Toodles!