Ha, no really we had one. One absolutely perfect day. Today is Eliza's actual birthday and as such was her 'special' day. We didn't do anything fabulous. We hung out together, had a few friends over, went to Mcd's for lunch, played at the school and had her favorite dinner followed by a walk around the block and cake. What made it absolutely perfect was watching her and realizing how she has grown and become more confident over this year, a big year full of lots of changes. Eliza has had on-again off-again health issues since she was born which have resulted in several hospitalizations. This year she outgrew an anaphylactic allergy to dairy and gained control of her asthma thanks to Singulair. She also had her first birthday party and her first attempt (and failure) with preschool. Today, for the first time ever she played with another little girl at my older kids school and she almost talked on the phone several times today. Really, she's a perfect little four year old girl.

Yesterday we had Eliza's 4th birthday party at the local bowling alley. She has never had a party before as she has never really had enough friends to fill a party. This year we pulled one together with her speech therapy friend and a couple little sisters from school. It was uneventful and cute. I forgot to put the battery in my camera before we left and now feel like a bad mother as I totally missed preserving the day.

I lay in bed this morning remembering the day she was born. It was such a hard time for me. Not just because of the whole trauma around her birth, but the subsequent stress and depression from it as well as dealing with three little kids - 4, 2 and new, and the 75 pounds I gained during that pregnancy. My husband is self-employed and his availability as "dad" has always been dependant on how busy and stressed his work life is. During my post-partum he always seems to be at his busiest and least available to me. I have my suspicions that this may be unintentionally intentional. He has a really hard time dealing with the lack of intimacy post-partum, particularly after a c-section. I think his worry about not hurting me easily turns into resentment. So, I have always felt extra alone and lonely right after the birth of all my children, ppd. Post-partum depression. I think I have been dealing with ppd in varying degrees for the past 8 years. My oldest daughter has her birthday next week, which will make it 8 years since all this began.

What a crazy, wonderful journey.
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Yesterday my kids school had their bi-annual Sharing Gala. The whole school, all 55 kids, go down to the little community hall and each child does a short performance in front of the school and various parents. My daughter, Tristan, played a Menuet in G Major on the piano and did fantastic. Then Toby played a solo on his pint sized drum set. Toby, who we were so worried about getting along in school and being too shy, marched up in front of everybody and played not a short little drum roll but a long Led Zeppelin-esque drum performance. It was heart- wrenchingly cute, hilarious and prefect all rolled in to one. He stole the show. Then as the topper Toby's little best friend, Nicky, went up and sang "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day acapella. It was the funniest, bravest performance ever. The whole song, humming and everything. What a great day. What a great school.
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Well, i'm not really alone i'm home with my four beautiful children, but my husband is away. It's all good though except one thing. (well, a few things)

Last night at 1:30 am I was sleeping as all good mothers are on a school night when I was awoken by a little tickle across my neck. I sat up with a fright and felt that little tickle roll around to the back of my neck and I swatted it and the little fucker (whatever it was) bit me! I jumped out of bed, flipped on the lights and my finger was bleeding and a large chunk was missing. My first instinct was to scream the scream that would wake all those beautiful children. Instead I calmly ripped apart my bed and eventually found a large carpenter ant crawling in my sheets! I killed it and flushed it. Do you think I could sleep after that? No, because where there is one ant there are MORE! I itched and fretted for three long hours before I eventually fell asleep in a worried slumber.

Tonight, before putting the little beauties to bed I vaccumed my room and searched every crevice and corner and I think it is all clear. But, will I sleep?

Then, I came down to watch tv and blog a bit and what do I find crawling on me three times? Three different fleas! Bugs. I hate bugs. I live in the forest and am surrounded by bugs and they are invading my home and I will never sleep again. I have put dvantage on both my dogs, Doodle and Lucy, but I won't sleep because I'm itchy and scratchy and alone.

Dammit.

Fucking bugs.
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I have, what I believe to be, the worst sleepers in all of north america; perhaps even the world. My children all woke up every two hours at least from the day they were born until well past two years of age. This has been going on for nearly eight years. I have not slept more than two hours in a go since 1997. No wonder I feel like crap mixed with a little euphoria.

My sleep debt must be running at around 1000 hours or more. I wish I had the constitution to be tougher, I wish I could 'ferberize' or some other magical sleep solution but the truth is I love sleeping with my kids. Oops I forgot to mention that part - all of my kids sleep with me until they are about two. Hmmm, I see a pattern here. Anyway, Iove sleeping with them and seeing there little faces beside me, knowing they are safe beside me. It makes up for it, except for nights like last night when not only is the baby up all night, but everybody else wakes up too.
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So, last night my husband and I went out - alone! It was the second time in three years that we have been out alone together. It was great, though a little too festive. We have had a very quiet day today. We went to a great restaurant, Steeples and watched a play, "Life After Hockey" after. The whole affair was a fundraiser for our kids school and was for the most part attended by parents of said school.

The problem is that Shane and I have this history of overindulging and then embarassing ourselves in any number of ways because we think we are actually the cleverest and most smartest people in the world. So, last night was no exception. I think we were the loudest people there and we managed to send "blowjob" shooters (kahlua and whipping cream) to pretty much everybody in the place. We also spent about $70 on those damn shooters.

Apparently, it was fun and has left my brain completely numb today.
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I have been on the verge of depression for weeks now. Last night I had the most terrifying dream, losing one of my children. I often dream about trying to keep them all together or losing one here or there. But, the actual death of one of my children. That's our worst fear, right? How do I ever get past that fear, somedays I don't know if I can live my life knowing that I could lose them at any moment.

It's parallizing.

It has made me wake up feeling like total, complete crap and it's raining.
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I absolutely love the name Toby, I love it so much I named my perfect 5 year old son Toby. It started as an infatuation with Tobin Sprout from Guided By Voices. I couldn't listen to his CD enough whilst pregnant and eventually knew that THAT had to be the name. Boy or Girl makes no difference to me, my oldest daughter is named Tristan.

Toby is 5 almost 6. He has been the light in my eyes and the pain in my heart since the day he was born. Toby has Apraxia of Speech. He has a small blip in his brain that doesn't allow him to make speech sounds correctly. He knows what everything should sound like, he just can't get the sound to come out. It has been at times agonizingly painful to watch him chastized by children younger than him for talking funny or completely unintelligably and at other times the highest joy that one can imagine when he masters a sound like T at the beginning of words which is so fundamental to the language that all of the sudden some small doors are opened and he is that much closer to being understood.

I agonized and ached over sending him to kindergarten and the problems he would face, and now, having found what I believe is the best little school in the world-he is on the verge of being a kindergarten graduate. He is happy and confident. He has buddies whom he adores. He fills my heart with joy every day as he races out of school just filled with the happiness of being a little boy, a happy little boy.
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Or not to wean, that is the question. Parker is almost 20 months old. I weaned all my other kids at 21 months, threee months before I was due with the next baby. It was logical timing and gave me the motivation to get the job done. Parker, on the other hand, is my last baby and while I am eager to have my body back and to get him sleeping through the night, I also know that this is it and as soon as I wean him I will be done with having and nurturing babies. That makes me so sad, really unbearably sad.

I am planning to do it soon, real soon. As soon as I figure out a way to magically conceive my next baby.
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My little Old English Hen has gone broody. It is by far the cutest thing I have ever witnessed. This little hen is about the same size as a Quail. In our chicken coop we have three different types of chickens Stella, the Old English broody hen, is the smallest then some little bantams and then some large egg layers. Stella is sitting on two of her eggs, two slightly larger bantam eggs and two of the big brown eggs. She is flattened her little body out over top of all these eggs and only leaves them for about 20 minutes every day and a half. I will take pictures of her this afternoon.

It reminds me of when Shane is away. Me and my four kids have a giant sleepover in my room. We drag in two extra mattresses and all five of us sleep together, It makes me feel like a broody hen watching over her clutch.
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My husband recently went away on business; for a week in Toronto. I love Toronto. I grew up in Vancouver and when I visit there now I feel like a stranger in my own home, but Toronto feels like what my home should have grown up to be. Well organized, multi-cultural, pretty, fun, great food and good people.

Anyway, Shane went away and he brought all the kids back yo-yo's. Only my oldest daughter Tristan could figure it out. She's the type of person that can do anything the first time she tries. She's really good at most everything and she's beautiful too. It's going to be hard to live up to her. Toby my five year old was very frustrated by the whole thing - poor guy. He ended up swinging his around as hard as he could and using it as some kind of ancient judo weapon. Hi-ya.

So all the yo-yo talk got my husband and I remembering the yo-yo's of our youth. There was one kind of yo-yo that lit up or something and it wasn't called a yo-yo and EVERYBODY had one in the pocket of their Rainbow Painter Pants or perhaps their French Cut Jeans. What were those called? It's driving me crazy.
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I don't know if there is anything as enjoyable as owning chickens, you can see Stanley here, anyway, we have had our chickens for about two months and I totally love them. I am the type of person who believes that most people suck, really suck. I am paralyzed with shyness and a total inability to communicate with 99.9% of the population. The people I do manage to talk with think, for the most part, that I'm really weird. Except Shane who is the love of my life.

Once upon a time I went a little crazy. Actually a clinical depression with rapid cycling mania. Shane and I broke up, for three weeks and I went and slept in the back room of a local, ultra-cool art gallery. The thing about ultra-cool is that it often translates into self-obsessed asshole boys who care little for anything but their own pursuits. Seemingly, hooking up with easy, hot young crazy girls is a good and easy pursuit. During this crazy time I managed to hold on to the highest paying job I have ever had, yet live on beer and no food and shed 30 pounds and sleep probably less than 20 hours in the whole six week nose dive into hell. Anyway, I went a little crazy - not a new story - but my story and one that has changed every day and every step I have taken ever since. So, we broke up. I remember my mom coming over to see me because she was worried and all I did for the entire six hour visit was cry. I have never cried so much - ever, I have never felt such an intense pain as the pain I felt at the thought that i had fucked everything up. That I had lost all that ever mattered. It's humbling to realize you love that much, or more accurately need someone that much.

So, now I live in the country and I own chickens and I have four children and two cute little dogs. I love them all and I am happy. My chickens remind me of what life was like for me before I had kids, before I went crazy, before I learned to hate people. Chickens are totally self-involved, yet completely dependant on their little social circle. When our other rooster, Charlie, calls his girls over they come running. He is the biggest wimp-assed rooster in the world, but damn, he is one hot looking cock.
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