professing love

Some days I wonder what I got myself in to. The kids are all screaming or crying, I get kicked, spat on, yelled at. Food is thrown. Tantrums are thrown. No one is happy.

And then art work like this comes home from school and all the bad stuff that happened that day disappears.  I love you too, Maja.

they are, afterall, part Canadian

This past December we had an epic snowfall — well, epic using Philadelphia standards. I think it was the biggest snowfall that we’ve had in December in a 100 years? or something like that. Of course this called for: SLEDDING/TOBOGANNING/SLIDING (call it what you will).

I was a little nervous sending Maja out to the park with a sled because last year when Richard and I took her sledding she got a face full of snow on her first run down the hill — we had to go home with her screaming the whole way back. Thankfully, however, this year was much better! She actually enjoyed herself!

tummy sliding, toboggan riding, snow slipping, saucer-flying!!!!!

I think she spent about 6 hrs out there on the toboggan hill that sunny day. I’m not kidding. She was loving it. And best of all? Maddy had fun too — they were both fearless!

#23

Today is a RED LETTER day: kindergarten registration for Maja. I can imagine to some people this would not seem to be such a big deal, but in our neighbourhood for our local public school is it. Richard was in line for registration at 6am. In the dark, cold, mid-January freezing-ness with a thermos of coffee and some hot bagels. And guess what? He wasn’t the first in line for one of the coveted 51 spots. He was #23. There were people in front of him with lawn chairs and blankets!

WHAT? Did I just say “public” school? Yes. A public school in Philadelphia. You heard me correctly. I have not lost my mind. And people lined up in the pre-dawn hours to get in? Uh-huh.

Our local public school is somewhat special, you see. It is the reason houses in our neighbourhood are so expensive as you have to live within a catchment in order to attend this school. The school which is partnered with the University of Pennsylvania and therefore is so well run. One of the few schools where a child can actually get a decent public school education in this city.

Disappointingly, though, Richard didn’t have to stay out there for 3 hrs waiting until the doors opened at 9am. A security guard handed out numbers and sent everyone home with instructions to come back at 8:45am. I am only disappointed because when the time comes I can not hold the guilt over Maja’s head:

Your father stood out in the cold for THREE HOURS so that you could go to school, young lady!!!!!!

Alas, he only stood out there for about 15 min. Ah well, there will be other opportunities to instill parental guilt on my child. For now, I’m just glad we don’t have to pay for daycare for Maja anymore come September.

Wild Thing

One of the events that occurred during December which I never got around to writing about was Maja’s stage debut. I have always proclaimed that Maja would be an actress… she’s SO DRAMATIC. Ooof.

The nursery school that the girls attend has the pre-K class put on 2 “plays” a year. The mid-year play was Where the Wild Things Are and Maja was the “lead” — as in she played Maxine, a female version of Max.

Here’s the video. Of course I cried — pregnancy hormones and all.

3 sisters

My three babies:

Maja in 2005; Madeleine in 2007; Pippa in 2009

welcome Philippa Emma Sabine

Pippa made her appearance on December 30, 2009 @ 10:07pm.

She weighed in at 7lbs 14oz — much heftier then I had thought she would be. 19″.

Philippa is because we like the name. Even more, I like her nicknames: Pippa, Pips, Pipster.

Emma was my great-grandmother’s name; it’s also my mother’s middle name.

Sabine is my older sister’s middle name.

My labour was… well, FAST. I thought Maddy’s labour was fast? HA! Try this: 1 hr. One. Hour. Quite frankly, I think it’s a small miracle I a) didn’t have the baby at home or b) have the baby in the ER or c) have the baby in the PEC (Perinatal Evaluation Center).

So, on the 30th I had an OB appointment. I was already annoyed that Pips had not made an appearance as now my entire family had left after the holidays — she was LATE and I was DONE being pregnant. The midwife that I saw that afternoon told me that I was at 4cm and about 80% effaced. WOHOO. I quietly asked if I should try the castor oil “trick”… and I got a very sotto voce answer: yes. 4oz in a chocolate shake. But then the midwife said I should wait until the morning of the 31st to do this; if I did it after my appointment I would be in labour all night and tired by the time the baby arrived. The look on my face then caused her to say: You’re not waiting are you? You have the look of a woman who is desperate.

Damn straight. Hello? The drugstore and the chocolate milk shake place are rightnexttoeachother. There was no way I wasn’t going to do the castor oil right away. So, by 3pm I had downed the concoction and probably within an hour I was having some moderate contractions. And it stayed that was for the rest of the afternoon and evening — definitely having contractions but nothing painful. I entertained my in-laws, we had Chinese take-out for dinner, I put the kids to bed at 8pm.

Shortly past 8pm I lay down in bed and prepared myself to do some Sudoku puzzles and fall asleep. I also started writing down some times of contractions. Not that they were painful, but just in case… between 8 and 9pm I had contractions that ranged from 3 min. apart to 8 min. apart. So: Not regular. Not increasingly painful. Not “progressing”.

At 9:10pm I had a contraction that was accompanied by a “pop”. My water broke. I rounded up the troops (Richard and my mom), Richard called our neighbour down the street to be in the house for M&M (who were asleep) and we headed to the hospital. I was checked in by 9:29pm and WALKED over to the PEC. At the PEC things got interesting. I joked that they were going to send me home! I mentioned that if possible I would like an epidural — at which point I believe the PEC nurse started laughing at me. Then all hell broke loose. She checked me — 8cm. No time for an IV. She called in the doctor and the two of them wheeled me down the hall from the PEC into a labour room. Yes, the DOCTOR wheeled the gurney.

Someone in the labour room (I swear there were like 5 nurses and the doctor, plus of course Richard and my mom were in there — a regular party) then mentioned my request for an epidural. Hello??? I’m done with the hard part — I know how this works, so I responded by yelling “THERE’S NO TIME FOR THAT!!!!” and I promptly started pushing… while I was still on the gurney. Someone asked me while I was pushing if I could move over to the other bed! Right. Don’t know how, but I slid over and immediately pushed 2 more times in the space of about a minute (taking a pause to yell at Richard to get the hell over to the bed and hold my hand! dammit) before Pippa made her arrival at 10:07pm.

Fast.

And there she was:

dust dust dust

It’s been almost 6 weeks since my last post. I swear that I haven’t forgotten to post… but well I’ve been BUSY. You know!

My mom has been and gone. We had an epic snowstorm in December; then there was Christmas and a baby. Then a few weeks of adjustment to our now family of 5.

The baby of course deserves a post of her own. With her birth story!

Let me just finish my dinner and I’ll get started on that…

December is for lists

December — the time to make lists. Except this year my lists are not for Santa. My lists are for me, and for you, and for Richard, and for my friends. I am making lists for co-workers, bosses. The lists are for information, procedures, phone numbers, names. The lists are for dates, events, shopping, groceries.

I like lists. Maybe I should make a list of lists… oh, I just did.

The problem is that despite all my lists I am not feeling more organized. I am just realizing, instead, how completely and woefully unprepared I am to deal with this baby.

I pray she doesn’t come early. Especially since I couldn’t get a hair appointment until the 14th; especially since my pre-baby pedicure is not until the 15th. Especially since my mom won’t be here until the 18th! And Maja’s pre-k play (did I tell you that she’s the “lead” in the play?!?) is the 18th and her ballet recital is the 20th. I can not miss those events. (See, a list of Important Events That Must Be Attended).

And then there’s the biggest list of all: the Honey-Do list. Stay tuned.

just.stop.touching.me.

People are asking me now when my due date is, now that I am really visibly pregnant. If I don’t answer quickly enough they start guessing: January? Februrary? March?

HA! Try 25 days??

People are asking me now how I’m “feeling.” I give them the nice version of the answer — Oh, great! Just fine thanks! — that is really floating around in my head.  The REAL answer? I am 36 weeks pregnant with my 3rd child in 4 1/2 years. How the hell do you think I’m feeling?!? My back hurts. My sciatic nerve hurts. I have heartburn. I have to pee every 3 minutes. I can’t walk properly. I can’t bend over. I can’t tie my own shoes. I can’t sleep. I’m exhausted. I have leg cramps at night.

Oh, I’m fine. Really. I am thankful that I do not have swollen ankles or hands; I am thankful that I do not have any morning sickness. I am thankful that my job is not physically demanding.

What is grating on my nerves the most lately is that there seems to be a never-ending stream of people touching me. The girls, to name a few. Maddy has to sit on my lap for every meal; Maja is in my lap when Maddy isn’t: story time, bed time, wake-up time. At any given moment I can have two kids sitting in my lap — touching my face, yanking up my shirt to talk to the baby or caress my belly. Maddy even tried to feed the baby some milk via my belly button. It never fails that one of them wants to be carried up or down the stairs. If I’m not standing up there is someone crawling on me. I try to spend a lot of time standing these days.

Direct invasion of my personal space is a given.

I was complaining (yes, complaining) of this constant state of touching to Richard the other day. His response was that I should be glad I’m not living in the 18th century. But, then, would I not have had a nanny? Apparently not, because according to him we would have been poor farmers, not rich noble people. So, there we would be — poor farmers with our 17 children because HE won’t stop touching me. Also because we would have been too dumb to know any better.

So, here I am at 4:30am having a few moments of peace and quiet. Well, maybe not so much peace as Emerson is sitting about 2 ft. away from my chair looking up at me with his big brown eyes, begging me to pick him up and put him on my lap for some cuddle time.

Who can resist that? Self-inflicted.

sewing the Jump Rope Dress

Two weeks ago I had the fabulous opportunity of joining Liesl Gibson as she gave a workshop at Spool Sewing on making the Jump Rope dress from her Oliver & S line.

First of all, let me just say how awesome it was to take an entire Saturday to be kid-free and do something that I enjoy doing. Really enjoy doing.

You can see a picture of the class here. That’s me… waaaay in the background there, 4th head from the left.

Second, it was fun to meet Liesl. What a gracious and friendly person. Even in those few hours I learned a lot about sewing. I have never taken a formal sewing class (unless you count that week of Home Ec during high school back in the ’80s where I learned to make a pencil case or something silly like that) and have learned mostly from my mom and just by doing.

Thirdly, Laura, from Spool Sewing, was a wonderful host. Thanks Laura!

I chose to make the dress in a non-patterned material, mostly because when I was doing some research on other people’s creations, it seemed to me that a lot of the detail on the dress gets lost in a complicated material. So, I headed off with Maja to the fabric store and decided on a fine-whaled corduroy. I really wanted red, but couldn’t get that, so Maja decided on a purple. And then she also chose some sweet butterfly buttons to go with it.

So, here it is on Maja:

I made the 4T size, although I probably have gotten away with the 3T. Well, she’ll grow into it!

Some detail:

And because they are so cute together (most of the time):