Tuesday, July 07, 2009

It's Just Another Manic Monday


First off, Happy Birthday to my Mom! :) We had my Mom and Dad over for supper to celebrate my Mom's birthday. I prepared the quickest dinner possible: baked salmon, hot potato salad, and sauteed zucchini. Dad brought a garden salad with lettuce from his garden. Little One gave her Lola a pretty bracelet that can hold photos of all the grandbabies. After the gift opening, Lola blew out her birthday candle.

The birthday cake? Well, I wanted to be different and I made a Chocolate Chess Pie (as per Hubby's request).
CHOCOLATE CHESS PIE
2 eggs
1 sm. can evaporated milk
3 tbsp. cocoa
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 c. sugar
3/4 stick butter

BE SURE TO MIX AS FOLLOWS: Beat eggs. Add 1 cup sugar and then add milk. Mix well. Mix cocoa with other 1/2 cup sugar. Add to egg mixture and mix well. Melt butter and mix with above. Add vanilla. Pour in 10 inch deep dish unbaked crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes. I make my pie crust from scratch and I think I may have even posted the pie crust recipe on the blog before. I'm too lazy to dig it up, but it's somewhere in the archives under "recipes".


It's been a crazy few days weeks months and I've discovered that I am such a bad wife. I've been finding myself totally wiped out lately. If I can get all our meals made, the dishes all washed, errands done, a few loads of laundry done, the baby taken care of and maybe a review or article written, it's a good day. Then I think of the gardens that need tending, the house that needs cleaning, the basement that needs finishing, the windows that need window treatment, the things Hubby needs help with on the farm...

I can go on and on. The nurse that comes to follow up on Little One said something that struck me yesterday. She said, "People who come to your home know you've had a baby. They come to see you and the baby and not your house. If they comment on the state of your house, hand them a broom!" :) That kind of put things into perspective for me. I need to learn how to pick and choose my battles. I suppose I can settle for a less than perfect house if that means that my baby and my husband are happy, healthy and taken care of.
I shouldn't complain about how exhausted I am. I should count myself lucky that I can spend time with Little One while she's little. I'll start teaching again when she's a bit older, but for now she needs my undivided attention. This is really important to me since she was born almost three months early.

This said, it's gotten to the point where I'm so tired or too busy to even make my husband's meals for when he comes in from work. I'm such a bad wife that this is what we had to eat:

Toasted Montreal bagels (brought by my aunt and uncle from Montreal) with garlic and herb cream cheese, smoked salmon and capers. I know this probably doesn't qualify as a "meal", but that's about all I could manage to make with all the work that had to get done.

Good news! Little One is now 11 lbs, 4.5 oz! She was assessed and is doing great! She's doing things she should be doing at her age (chronologically and corrected). She's been rolling a lot, laughing a lot, smiling at everything and everyone, and is now *gasp* trying to crawl. She'll be 8 months chronological on the 11th and is still being exclusively breastfed. Some people have been telling me "You should stop nursing her!" or "She should really be eating solids now". The neonatologist actually backed me up and said that she believes I shouldn't rush into feeding Little One solids. She's a preemie. Her stomach and guts are still premature compared to babies who are born at term. Come August, I should be able to start her on solids if I feel she's ready.

Little One is showing signs that she's ready. She reaches for our food when we eat. She tries to eat big people food. Her appetite is increasing tenfold. Am I going to start her on solids in August? I'm not sure. We shall see. Part of me feels sad that she's almost ready for solids. It's exciting and sad at the same time. Exciting because she's reaching new milestones, but sad because she'll be a year old in four months!!!

My niece, The Teenager (formerly known on the blog as "Toad") likes the Black Eyed Peas. Little One was groovin' to BOOM BOOM POW the other day. I cannot believe my 7 month old baby was laughing and dancing to "I'm so 3008. You so 2000 and late. I got that boom boom boom. That future boom boom boom.Let me get it now". She's such a funny girlie.

9 comments:

hotmommy said...

what are you talking about? you are a fantastic mom and wife- my husband has to fend for his own and i stay at home with the kids. raising kids is not as easy as you think. don't beat youself up chris. its hard beign a moher and a wife and if yo9ur working outside the hoome even harder.

again what are you talking about? that bagel looks like an amazing meal !

boom boom pow! hah hah! she's so cute. my kids were running around the hosue singing tht song. uh it gets a bit annoying after hearing it all day tho' !

sorry for such a logn comment but i just wanted to remind you of what an amazing job you're doing. hang in there and call me if you find that you are having a rough time . can you not get anyone to help you over there? like a friend or family member? maybe once a week even?

rememer you just had a baby, your hormones are still outta whack, this is new to you, your live on a friggen farm and have so much stuff to do all the time, this isn't the life you were accustomed to- you're used to teaching and being out there and not being at home doing chores all the time. you'll learn to balance things . you are doing great. look at how happy and thriving that lil girl of yorus is doing. that's all because of you! ok john had a lil to do with that too!

gotta run- the kids have day camp at the ymca and i have ethe house to myself and must get stuff done while they're out .

Patti said...

I can TOTALLY relate to what you're saying!! Finally someone understands what I'm going through! I feel so exhausted lately that I am lucky if I even sweep my floors or do my dishes in a day. And my little one is having naps during the day. She WAS sleeping through the night, but now has decided that she needs to wake up about 3 times at night again as if she were a newborn! She's not hungry, or wet, she just wants to babble and make noise! I feel terrible when I get upset that my sleep has been disturbed, but I just don't know what to do. My weight is out of control. I'm the same weight now as when I was 9 months pregnant!! But I can't seem to get my ass off the couch and do something about it. I eat like there's no tomorrow... It's embarassing and I hate even going out to go grocery shopping because I'm ashamed of how I look... I just need a break!
I am so sorry, I unloaded all of this on here. I don't really have anyone to talk to.
Boom Boom Pow... that's so funny!! Little One is definately going to have a large repertoire of music! She's such a cutie!! Can't wait for her baptism. Take care. And again, I'm sorry for taking up so much space.

Jackie said...

my theory is this:
my house may be a bit messy, but i would rather be playing with my kids then cleaning my house as soon they will be gone from my house and i want memories of them, not of my clean house. and if people drop over and don't like the state of my house, they don't need to come back=)

Anonymous said...

I'm with Jackie!!! Being a single mom with two full time kids and a niece ever other weekend, I have better things to do than clean all day and night... I want to spend as much time with my kids as I can now! (before they don't want me around anymore)My sister doesn't have any kids and at first she would complain every time she came over that the floors weren';t fit to eat on, and "OMG" What's with all the toys!!! One day she changed her mind... After spending two days with my kids when I was out of town on work... She then saw how hard it is to juggle all that work, and spend some time with the kids... I'm taking quailty time, not just the regular stuff like feeding, bathing, laundry (I make my kids fold the socks), homework etc...
Keep it up "C" YOU ARE AMAZING, just like every other mother out there! We need to stick together!
HERE"S TO EATING ON DIRTY FLOORS! (Just kidding)
Tata for now
Stephanie
XXX

Uncivil said...

Happy belated Birtday to your mom! And there is no way on this earth you could be a bad wife or a bad mommy!
The sparkle in little one's eyes tells it all!
I think it has something to do with the month of July? I've felt like doing nothing here lately! I'm gonna blame it on the weather?
That;s my story and I'm stickin' to it!

Unknown said...

HM:
Thank you :) You are too kind. You are such a good friend. Now I know what you were talking about when you had your first! Everything all makes sense to me now :)

I was actually going to call you today...but, before I knew it the day seemed to just disappear. Funny how that happens! I'll try again sometime this week. xo

Unknown said...

Patti:
OMG! The funny thing is that I was going to call you the other day! :) BUT I didn't want to "unload" on you! LOL! Us mommies here in [insert name of township] have got to stick together! There aren't too many of us in [insert name of township] that have babies around the same age!

Speaking of which, friends of ours had a baby boy a few weeks ago. We were laughing and saying that your little one, our little one, our friends' son, and our other friends' son will all be in school together (in the same grade)! Two boys and two girls! Too cute!

Unknown said...

Jackie:
Okay, I seriously LOVE YOU!!!! LOL! :) Thank you for posting that comment. That really, REALLY made me feel a lot better! :)

I guess I should also thank your husband for always coming to the rescue whenever I've got something wrong with my vehicle! I did see you once in passing. It was the time my vehicle broke down in front of the grocery store! Your husband said, "Oh! Look! There's my wife!"

Anonymous said...

Well, at least you are making meals. Tonight I made HOt Dogs and French fries...and then ate Adam's portions while I was waiting for him to come home form work. So I win the bad wife award for making acrappy dinner and not even leaving him any! Oh well...he loves me and I was never really domesticated!

Glad to hear LO is doing so well. Don't worry what anyone says about starting solids, you'll know when she is ready. Charlotte just started about 2 weeks ago. I was so sad to no longer be exclusively BFing her, though really she eats so little, I am still like 95% BFing her!

Start with Avocados! Charlotte really likes them, and no preparations required!

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About the Blog Author


City girl moves to the country, falls in love, and marries a farmer. She tries to incorporate her city ways with her new country lifestyle and blogs to keep in touch with friends, family & students who live far, far away :) Can this city girl go country? Watch as she learns all sorts of exciting things about life on the farm and in a small rural community. *UPDATE* We are now parents! Our baby girl was born on Nov. 11, 2008 (at 28 weeks gestation- 12 weeks premature, but she's quite the trooper)!!!
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