Eat dust no more

I hadn't been able to get the house clean since surgery. A friend came one day and did my floor, but that was all she'd gotten done, so it was driving me nuts. Yesterday, I was finally able to get it all clean and for 1 glorious hour my house felt great. But Brian is still sanding and within an hour, the dust was settling once again, in the cupboards, in our dishes, on every ledge and object. In fact, I had a glass of water out from lunch, that afternoon I took a drink from it and could taste the drywall in my water! I wouldn't recommend drywall tea. Thankfully none of us seem allergic, we are just always dirty. Emora was trying to mud the dog here, or brush her with the mudding tool?






But the good news is that as of an hour ago, the mudding and sanding is done- as far as I know anyways. He started priming. I keep hoping I can go down there and help. Maybe at night. The girls are not the best carpentry assistants!



They have their own colorful abilities.


Dominique amended her future plans. She has been saying that she wants to be a dancer and a singer. Now she added a colorer and drawer. She is always drawing and making gorgeous creations.

It's brutally cold here these days, but then it swings and gets warm for a few days. My neighbor told me we'll probably just have another cold snap and it will start to get warmer, like not -30 anymore, just -10 or so. Looking forward to warmer days and the nearing finish of the basement. Can't wait to see our colors up on the walls and do all my extra paint details ;)

Do you like to do artistic projects? paint, draw, dance, sing, theater?

SKIING!!!!!

One of the amazing amenities of Fort Qu'Appelle is it's very own downhill ski facility. Of course it costs a small fortune, because all these places do, but sometimes being in the right place at the right time is to your advantage. About a month ago, a mom called me up and told me they had a learn to ski program for ages 5-10, including a 2 hour lesson, equipment and lift ticket for $10. Well, the price was right so we signed him up. It was canceled several weeks due to extreme cold and last week because a school with 100 kids were going to be there. So Sat. he finally got to go.


He was so excited! I went to take pics and be there, but ended up having to walk up the hill a lot to help him, however my knee is being ok. I think the exercise is limbering it up.

Here he is getting ready for the tbar with his teacher.


It's not as easy as it looks. He never did quite master this skill.

The weather was perfect in that it was really warm, but that caused a big problem for Ivan. He wasn't sliding down the hill at all. After over an hour in class, he still hadn't made it down the hill once. He must take after me in that. I could never really do snowplow and neither could he. But eventually the teacher got him out on a steep incline and he at least got momentum to get down.


I was trying to get him to stay since his lift ticket was for all day, but his legs were tired and it would have been a huge, possibly impossible challenge for me to help him up the hill on the tbar with my knee still healing. So we called it quits for this time. They offer the program each year and he is already looking forward to learning a bit more. I would have loved to go down too! Maybe some day...

So nice out!!!

It was above freezing today, so knee problem or not, we had to get out. I really, REALLY wanted to walk up to get Ivan, but I'm guessing it is still too early for that and I'm afraid I'd get there and not be able to make it home. I've already figured that if that happened, I would beg a ride from someone, so it wouldn't be the end of the world, but maybe I should try some shorter walks first and see how that goes.



So I drove to get Ivan and we went out to get pictures of Emora. She is now 2 and I will need to work on her portrait when I have gotten some of my other pressing paint projects done, like all my house dreams. So it won't be for a little while, but who knows how long the warm snap will last or when we might have another one!

The kids loved getting out and we saw some creature swimming in the river! Ivan was freaking out about crocodiles and then they really did see something swimming. They looked terrified. I didn't see it and told them it must have been the crocodile, which didn't help them any, then a lady walked by and told us there really was something in the water and she told me the name, which I forgot. She said it was a relative to a muscrat or something. Then she showed me where it was, so that was amazing.


We also went "mountain climbing". Ivan actually had "mountain climbing" as part of his gym class this week, when they went out for outside gym class. They had a whole mountain range here, but we didn't stay too long. I couldn't chase them, neither could Emora and they were starting to get cold. I'd already had to help Dominique perform an outdoor emergency potty spot in the snow, good thing we'd had lots of practice in the days when she always wanted to pee outside with the boys, way back when I kept kids (pre Emora days).



Our other cool sighting was this. I don't remember people shoveling snow from roofs growing up, but apparently it is all the fad now. Emora thought they were pretty funny and kept pointing saying "shovel" and giggling.

slowly returning to the land of the living

This has been me most of last week. I had no idea that I would be so tired after the knee surgery. It was exhausting! I am slowly getting more energy, although am not at my normal yet. That may be a combination of healing as well as being inactive. I find that I am more tired if I do not get out or get exercise, both of which I have not been able to do. I do have the physical therapy and I can now do all 5 exercises with about full range of motion and only one hurts really bad still, so that is exciting to me.


Dominique spent the entire day Monday with her best bud Fiorella, who lives across the street. They like to play Mommy and Daddy, Talking Dogs, Fairies and Butterflies, Barbies... Fiorella's mom said they play so nice together, then they come to my house, add Ivan to the mix and it all digresses!!



This occurred while the trio were playing Stars Wars outside. Ivan was hit in the face by our pine tree. I asked him who the tree was and he said the tree was Darth Vader, and that he had hit his head. So we tried to tell him that he could tell his friends at school that he got a war wound while fighting Darth Vader, but the guy is too truthful and told them all he ran into a tree.

He's quite dramatic and when he first showed me, it was all white from being out in the cold, but it did scab over and looks so impressive.


I got out a couple of times on the weekend to visit each of my cousin's. It was so nice and I got to meet our newest family member... Ian and Janet gave birth to Neve the same day I had my knee surgery and we were finally able to get out and meet her.

Today was pretty exciting. Brian went into the city and did a ton of errands, one of which was to pick up the paint for the basement!!! My favorite part and I have so many plans- should keep me busy for quite a while. Meanwhile, I had a few places I wanted to get to and one I had to go to, so we braved the cold and tested out my improving knee... got bread at the bake shop (and donuts as bribery for good behavior in the grocery store), had PERFECT children in the grocery store and donut eating children in the parking lot, then we got to the library where some books came in for me and we found 25 other books for the kids!! We are book monsters.

Other exciting news is that I am going to take up some part time work. My cousin's friend does commercial building cleaning in the evenings and has several at home moms hired. She started the business because she couldn't stand the idea of going back to work after her mat leave. I'll clean a bank 30 min. a night, anytime between 4:30pm and 8am and get paid about $30/hour!! I had been thinking that I may have to take in kids again once the dust settled, but wasn't particularly looking forward to that. I'll make in 1.5 hours, what I was making in 10 hours keeping 2 extra kids all day, along with my own! If I'm interested in having more hours and pay, she said that she often gets more contracts and the other ladies don't want more than 2 hours/night. I think it will be a great fit for us and I won't have to subject my kids to more change with bringing in others or have to rearrange our lives just as we are starting to figure it out. I will most likely start in mid Feb. as we see how my knee does and if that fits with the other ladies' schedules.

Another hobbling day

We are still limping along. My knee is getting stronger and stronger. I'm hoping that by the end of next week it will not hurt anymore and I'll be able to resume some of my more regular activity, like walking to get Ivan at school and maybe my pilates videos. I am anxious to try skating, but figure I should wait a good month or at least see how it's doing with my regular exercising before trying something that I haven't done in years!

Since I've been at home, non stop and I can walk some, I figured we would try to do potty training once again. My sister had read a book about potty training in a day. While I didn't get the book, I looked up online what they had to say and one idea was to give her a doll that she teaches to go potty with.

That is how I would convince her to take naps and I'd never thought of using the tactic for the potty. It has made a big difference. Before I would suggest she try the potty and it would be a power struggle she would fight me on (she would even fight me on changing her wet diaper). Now she is mostly excited to take her baby to the potty and make smiley faces on their chart. A couple of times she's still fought me, but she's also used the potty WAY more than before and once said that the baby needed to go potty when she had to go. She has never told me when she has to go before the fact, so this was huge! Speaking of, she just woke up from nap and is crying, so I better go. Maybe her baby needs to use the potty too!! ;)

Big little steps

The kids are surviving mommy recovery time. They are still having fun terrorizing each other, creating, discovering, loudly dancing, singing, playing, arguing.



Here Emora was in the "house" the kids were making. It consisted of piles and piles of blankets, toys, books, all sorts of things they were hauling to put under the table as their "house". I think Brian is ready for his own little "house" away from the piles and noise and chaos.

Good news is, that some new skills are developing. Here Dominique was making her and Emora's lunches all by herself (OK, I cut up their apple- but she got all the stuff out and made sandwhiches all by herself, I think Saba was in charge of cleanup).


Emora is so cute these days it's crazy. She is enjoying wearing her big cousin's clothes and acting all grown up, except she doesn't want to use the potty. I'm figuring once I can function again, we will get back to working on that skill.

My big triumphs today were to shower and get dressed, plus I can now hobble around without my crutches. It still tires out both my legs though and I'm mentally zapped pretty quick too. So- here's to naps, my husband, new skills, healing and sanity!

a lot harder than I realized!

So I think my doctor was a little overly optimistic. He said some people have no more pain a couple of hours after surgery or a few days. But then I was reading a pamphlet before surgery that said I would be able to return to a "desk" job a week after surgery and regular activities in 1-2 months. I guess he had injected some numbing into my knee during surgery. When that wore off Sat. it was no longer a fun, easy ride. Felt like someone was hacking off my leg with a hand saw! Poor Brian is getting the brunt of everything, trying to take care of the kids, manage the house and do everything for me. I have some leg exercises I'm supposed to be doing, but two of them I can't do at all yet. If I can't see any improvement when I try them again tonight or tomorrow, I'm going to call the therapist and see if this is normal or to be expected.

Brian learned where all the dishes and spices were tonight. He realized that he hadn't made a meal in our new house yet. I had some leftovers on hand for the first few meals, but we've eaten those. The kids are learning to help out too, so it's a great life lesson in caring for others. I guess I just didn't realize that I wouldn't be able to walk for quite a while or be in this much pain from it. The only thing I had to compare it to was having babies, but that gets better each day once you leave the hospital. I was a bit surprised when it got worse, way worse for my leg. Physical therapy really sucks too. It's so hard and discouraging. But the swelling is going down and I keep hoping that tomorrow I'll be able to do more. I dream of skating and skiing to remind myself that I couldn't keep being restricted in everything forever with the way my knee was.

I have a friend who volunteered to come clean my house Wed! Looking forward to that ;)

Also, I just found out yesterday that my cousin, who was my age, was killed in a car accident yesterday. He is the father of 4 or 5 kids. We gave Ivan his middle name "Truth" after we heard that Wayne had given the name to his son. He loved his kids a lot and was always sending pictures out of them. He has 3 siblings, a wife, the kids, grandma and so many friends just reeling in pain. Be praying for them. I can not imagine their depths of loss and so even with my knee being stupid, I can hug my husband and children and know that this season will pass, we will come through this well, and perhaps even stronger and that we are so very blessed. There is a lot of pain in the world and we have been sheltered from so much.

Our crazy temps.

It was -33 celcius here last week. Sunday it's supposed to get to -3 or so and Monday +1C. To my dear friends in the South and others who haven't lived in cold climates. This sudden winter warming is called a chinook. It is a weird time when people will suddenly feel act summer is here, although it is what is considered "winter cold" in Abilene, here, I can about guarantee that I will see some crazy Canadian outside in shorts and others in t-shirts. Hey when it is much colder than that and I will see insane teenagers in a shirt with no jacket or someone with no mitts, meanwhile I am bundled up with my little eye slits showing. But when the temperature suddenly swings 30 degrees, it really does feel very warm, it's all perspective I guess.

So to give you some perspective. Here is a visual of just how cold -30 is. They say -40 Celcius is the same as -40 F, but most people who live in the world of Fareinheit have probably never been somewhere when it dipped down to minus 40. I have friends who read this (Tighe, this one is for you!) who asks me how cold it actually gets. Dad was saying that frozen water turns into steam/snow when thrown up in the air in -30. Some people in the city of Regina, just next door to us, did just that. The link is here. There are more videos on youtube.

Surgery update

Surgery went really well, I guess. I'm feeling ok anyways. We'll see how my knee goes after the effects of recent surgery wear off. I had the best nap of my entire life! I didn't get a lot of sleep the night before, there were several interruptions, one of which was Emora from 2am until 5am! The alarm went off at 6am and we were on the road by 6:30. The road was not a friendly place. Mom said there was a fatal accident on a road to the South of Regina. We were coming from the SE and while they weren't slippery, visibility was a bit rough, with it still being dark and the wind blasting snow across the highway, but it cleared up some after Balgonie and we made it at the exact time they told us to be there.



The nurses were so nice. I was pretty relaxed about the whole thing, except when the doctor asked what my questions were that I had been contacting him all week about and I just as quickly forgot what they all were once again. Ah, well, I asked the nurses some of them when I remembered and prayed that the best thing would be done.


He removed part of my meniscus, which never sounds like a good idea to me (removing body parts), but it's not like my knee was doing so good before and I did see on the internet, which is also what the doc said that repairing a meniscus tear isn't all that possible, especially considering my tear is a good 1 1/2 years old. They recommend repairing them in the first 2 weeks of getting one!


I'm at home now with crutches and codene. Brian is trying to corral the kids and cater to me. I give him A+ for effort, C+ for success rate ;) ah, well, the kids are pretty rowdy, it's not really a one person job. Ivan had a blast sleeping over at Arwen's house and the girls enjoyed playing at our neighbor's Char's house with her teens coming over to be in the house at 6:30, until they woke up and Char taking care of them and her other 2 kids the rest of the day.

Brian just told the kids to find a game that does not involve throwing things, making a mess, jumping on the furniture or running around. They are not sure what else there is to do! ha, ha, ha. Welcome to mommy world babe. Really, he already knew what it's like, but usually when it gets like this, he escapes down to the basement and starts slapping plaster on the walls.

Also, I'm considered "impaired" for the next 24 hours! What fun! I was told not to drive, operate machinery or sign any important documents. Sounds so serious ;) Do you think I've had too much codene yet? I need another one of those fancy naps they gave me! Hum, maybe while I'm on the computer I'll make a sign for my door "Sorry kids, the momma is off duty!"

Surgery day!

Brian took some pictures of the place to show you how high our snow banks are getting. He should have put one of the kids beside it so you would get a better perspective. The tall snow piles are taller than them. You can see with the truck that it is up to the top of the truck bed or so, and here we are not even done January. Dominique was asking me when summer will get here. On a day like today, we are all asking the same question. It was minus 33 C, which is crazy cold for you Fareinheit folks.






Our little quinzee is in this big pile. We need to dig it out some more. The girls would be able to stand up inside it then, but I'm waiting for the temps to get a little bit nicer. Brian said they are predicting -1 C for Sunday. I'll believe it when I see it. He said they are also predicting lots of flooding come spring. It flooded last year and all this snow has got to go somewhere, so I would not be surprised. Brian was extremely glad he put the sump pump in when he'd heard that. For those of you who don't know, a sump pump sucks water out from under the house's foundation once it gets to a certain level. We knew that would be a good idea, when we saw water right up to the foundation when we first moved in, in Aug.



As you read this, I will actually be undergoing knee surgery or somewhere in recovery, maybe even on my way home! I'm not sure how mobile I will be, so the kids and I tried to prepare some. We made muffins and have a couple of meals set, laundry done (ok, they didn't help with that part, and Brian did a lot, when the washer quit working on us this morning at 7am, yeah, that's for another story!)



We loaded up on some chapter books, have some movies we could watch and soup in the fridge, so no matter the temps and my mobility or lack thereof, we will be set to face what ever comes.