Brrr x 2

Day too of the cold snap. Yes, I definitely remember why I left this province, and living on the edge of a small town with nothing but bald prairie to stop (hah!) the wind....well....ick. Why on earth does anyone live here? I watch my poor birds and I can't believe they don't just turn into little feathered blocks of ice. It boggles my mind that the little bastards can survive at minus 30 now and thirty above in the summer.

Today was a relatively lazy day. I didn't bake anything as I still have lots of brioche and corn bread that I need to get through. Mary is helping, she loves my baking. I did go through all the baby clothes and put everything under 9 month sizes away, and I pulled all the 12 month stuff out of boxes. Holy crap that baby is huge! I weighed her on the scale today by weighing myself without and then with her. According to my scale she is now 19 lbs. She's still 2 weeks away from 6 months, and she's the same size as Mary was when she was 11 months old...and we thought that Mary was big then too!

Skating went a bit better today. The other mothers joke about her guarding the circle, because she just stands there, on the edge of one of the circles in the ice and refuses to move. Today the teacher (I learned today that her official title is coach, but it seems a little ridiculous for a 3 year old to have a coach, don't you think?) actually convinced her to lift one of her feet off the ice for a second. Only one, mind you, and she wasn't thrilled about it, but she did lift it. It's a start. I felt kind of bad because the teacher (coach) has to spend so much time with Mary, but I spoke to her about it and she doesn't mind. She said that as long as Mary talks about skating and likes coming to keep brining her. So, I will do just that. Next lesson is on Monday, maybe she will lift the other foot!

I'm not going to be in Edmonton for Christmas (damn it), but when I do come visit I'll make sure to bake up something special to share with everyone! Maybe I'll make a brioche loaf, oops, sorry Goody, I didn't mean to offend your American sensibilities...I'll bake up some "Freedom Bread." Hey, how do you tell the difference between French Bread and Brioche? Isn't it all Freedom Bread?

The reason I am so fat

This is what I do with my life:


Brioche. It isn't lovely, kinda looks like malformed breasts, but boy does it taste good! With four eggs, lots of milk and sugar, it's rich and heavenly. I suspect it would have looked better had I not forgotten the egg wash before putting it in the stove.


Six "mini" cornbread loaves. Yeah, they're small, but not what I would call mini by any means. Again, they taste heavenly, especially fresh out of the oven.


Sugar cookies I made in honour of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Oh, they're good, and addictive.


My nicest looking loaf of bread yet. Dijon Honey bread with thyme and oregano. It is fantastic for ham sandwiches I've been told. Ian liked it, but it's not my favourite.


So, there you have it. Today I can't really get out. With the temperature at -20 plus 60 km/hour winds, well, it's damn cold out. Too cold for the girls, and too cold for me. I went out this morning to feed the birds and after 2 minutes my fingers were too frozen to open the door when I wanted to come back in. I remember now why I left Saskatchewan.

Winter

Yikes. It looks like winter has joined us here in Milestone for real today. Brrrr. It's cold, bloody windy, and snowing today. My poor sparrows and doves look extremely cold out there today.

The weekend went well. The Riders won the Grey Cup (Yay!). I made pizza for us to eat during the game. We had pondered ordering in, but instead I found a recipe for pizza dough. My pizza was superior in every way to restaurant stuff and altogether cost a fraction of what it would have had we ordered in. I'll definitely be doing that again!

Rico drove out to visit us on Friday, and that was fantastic. It was great to see him and to actually have someone other than each other to talk too. I was awfully sad to see him go, but he sure lifted our spirits while he was here!

Other than that there isn't much to report since my last update, so here, look at pictures instead!





I made fresh french bread for Rico's visit on Friday. It turned out really well, although it did split down the side.

I'm a Superstar!

Did I mention that I read for a part in the local theatre company Monday evening? Well, I did, and today I got a call from the director. They offered me the part of Carol, the eldest of four girls, recovering alcoholic, Chartered accountant, bitter spinster. It's funny, of all the characters in the play I liked Carol the least, and I wasn't able to identify with her in the slightest. Ah well, I guess a challenge is a good thing, right? We have another meeting tonight and I'll be getting the full script. The play runs the first two weeks in April, with a competition in North Battleford happening the week after Easter. I'm still a little shocked that I got a part at all, let alone a relatively major parts (not that there are many minor parts in a play with only 8 characters in total).

Okay, Frances is howling, she's probably flipped over onto her belly again. She works so hard to get there, and then is filled with rage when she succeeds. She hates being on her belly.

Marshmallow Creme

So, this recipe for one of the many homemade Christmas gifts that I am making called for something called marshmallow creme. I couldn't find it anywhere, and I have no clue what it is, so I looked it up on line and learned that it is something almost exclusively American. So, I did what any determined gift maker would do and I found a recipe on how to make it myself. Do you know what is in marshmallow creme? I do, it's sugar in several forms, a few egg whites and a dash of vanilla. Anyways, the recipe I found made way more of the stuff than I needed. I now have a litre of marshmallow creme languishing in my fridge. Anyone have ideas of what I could do with the stuff?

Valuable Lessons

How do you like the new colours? I decided to switch from pink to green in honour of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. For those of you who care, the Riders are on their way to the Grey Cup, for those of you who don't, well, fine then. Never Mind.

I learned a valuable lesson yesterday. Ian was strapping Mary into the van so we could head off to the rink for Mary's skating lesson, and he was being pretty feeble and taking a long time. Mary was muttering to herself as she often does, and at one point she sighed, looked at Ian and said "Oh Jesus Daddy." Ian just about choked from fighting his laughter, and I was mortified. You see, I couldn't blame that one on Ian's foul mouth at all, Mary was channeling me in a terrifying way. I don't even realize when I'm saying it sometimes, but "Oh Jesus" Is my curse of choice. When Mary's being bad I often say "Aw, Jesus Mary!" So, It's my fault. I told my Mum, and she mentioned that when I was that age my favourite thing to say was "Goddamn it!" Anyways, the lesson I learned - watch your mouth around 3 year olds.

Skating is still going surprisingly well. Mary talks about it all the time, and we have to drag her off the ice. It's funny though, her instructor told me yesterday that Mary is very quiet and serious. I guess she hasn't said one word to anyone in the course of her lessons so far. It's like the ice sucks the voice out of her, and the minute her skates are off she turns back into a chatterbox. I do know that she likes it because every time we go to leave the rink it's a fight, and all she'll say is "I stay here Mummy!"

Frances is good. She started rolling over the other day, and after a few hours of practicing hard she now has rolling from her back to her belly down pat. Unfortunately she hasn't figured out how to get back to her back, and she gets mighty pissed off about 2 minutes after rolling over. So, we flip her back onto her back, and 5 minutes later she's on her belly again. She's been much nicer to be around for the last week now too. Nowhere near as much screaming, she's laughing at everything, and in one day she cut down the puking by more than half! She still doesn't have much of a personality, but I can certainly see it developing.

Oh, and as a final note, Lady Myke finally had her baby! Yay! It seemed like she had been pregnant forever, and it's finally over.

She Skates!

Hmm. It would seem that I've been lollyblogging again. It's not a bad thing though, I've just been too busy to come here and moan about how miserable my life is.

Things are going pretty well, I think. This week Mary started her skating lessons, and they are going amazingly well. We had a bit of a hitch at the first one on Monday as the cheap WalMart skates we bought her were, well, cheap. She couldn't stand in them on dry ground, let alone ice, they just didn't give her the support she needed. So yesterday we went to a used skate shop, picked out a pair of incredibly cute little figure skates, and after trying them on and discovering the big difference, we bought them. Unlike Monday when Ian had to drag Mary around on the ice himself, today I just dropped her off in the care of one of the young helpers and headed off to the warmth to watch. Mary did so well, I can't even express how proud I am of her. She stood on the ice instead of laying there bawling (like some of the other students), she listened to the instructor and her assistants, and by the end of the half hour actually managed to move around on the ice a little by herself. Soon she'll be a better skater than I am, although it's not hard to be better than me at that sport (or any sport, really). She had lots of fun, she didn't shed a tear and I had to bribe her off the ice.

Yesterday we went off to the city so I could get my eyes checked. It went well, though it took forever, and nothing was resolved. It turns out the doctor I had is related to my favourite Veterinarian, Dr. Love (not his real name, and you have to say it in a pornographic sort of way to get it right). Anyways, he is sending me off to an Opthamologist because I saw squiggly lines when I should have seen straight. All I know is that he put nasty drops in my eyes that made my pupils swallow the iris, shone incredibly bright lights in my eyes, and I couldn't see my grocery list when we went shopping.

I know I've been busy doing something, but for the life of me I can't remember what else I've done. I have put together some more stuff for Christmas gifts, I've made bread. I learned that I cannot make meringue to save my life, my poor husband loves lemon meringue pies, and he will never get one made by me.

Man I'm exhausted. You'd think that I was the one on the ice today. Well, I'd better go get supper started so it's ready for my loving husband when he gets home! Aren't I a good little housewife? :)

Lest We Forget

In Flanders Fields
Written by John McCrae in 1915


In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Long Day

Today Ian is working 13 hours. Sigh. I feel kind of bad for him, although it was his choice to work so much, but I feel worse for me. As crazy as he often drives me, he is my only adult contact, I get lonely and depressed if he's gone too long.

Mary is sleeping right now. It's 5:30. She fell asleep at 3, and at 5 I tried to wake her to get her to eat supper, but no dice. Pity for her, supper was really good tonight. I ate it and drank a pint of dry cider all by myself. I don't know when she'll actually wake up, but I suspect I won't get to shower tonight after the girls go to sleep like I planned. I doubt Mary'll sleep before 9.

We bought Mary skates yesterday! She's starting skating lessons at the local rink on Monday, it should be interesting. The woman I spoke too told me that if Mary despises it after 3 classes they will refund our money. We are getting a family membership to the rink, I think I may take up curling, and Ian wants to play hockey. Thankfully my father is pitching in, we'd never be able to afford the rink fee's without him.

Frances is miserable. I'd better go.

Goodnight Sweetheart

I've created a problem. A serious problem. I don't know how to fix it. A while back I started unlocking Mary's bedroom door before going to bed myself (yes, I lock my child in her room at night. I am a bad bad mother). She would wake up every morning between 6 and 7 and wander over to our room, climb into bed and snuggle with me for an hour or so before we got up. It's nice when she does that, I like it. Then last week she woke up in the middle of the night and came sobbing to our room. So, I pulled her into bed to sleep with us. Every night since that night she has come to our bed at some point in the middle of the night. I don't generally mind, but it's getting a little out of control. Last night at about 3 am she came to our bed, but instead of going back to sleep she lay there between Ian and I, kicking and flailing and occasionally exclaiming "Ah! Aaaaahhhhh!" or perhaps "Mummy. Mummy sleeping. Night Mummy! Cookies please?" After about an hour of this behaviour I had enough and brought her back to her bed. She flipped. After about an hour of coaxing and singing her songs at 5 AM she finally went to sleep and stayed in her own bed till we got up for the day. Today she is exhausted and I am exhausted, and I'm dreading having to break the habit that I have inadvertently encouraged.

I called the eye doctors office to make an appointment for Ian and I, and we have to wait over a month! I was some annoyed. I told the girl after the appointments were made that I was having some problems with my eyes, and when she found out that I have a black spot in my vision, she bumped me up to next week. I would say sweet, but by her reaction I think that my eye spots may be more than just a little annoying. Sigh. The last thing I need is to have a serious problem with my eyes. There's enough on my plate to keep me miserable without that.

We voted in the provincial election today. When I went in the woman who took my name was very excited to meet me. She welcomed me to Milestone, told me that she understands how hard it is to move to a small town and actually meet people, and gave me several phone numbers of people to call about the mom and tots group as well as skating classes for Mary. I'm off to call them right away. Wish me luck! I may just make a friend in this stupid province yet!

I Need It

So, I'm reading these books, a series by the author Michelle West called the Sun Sword. I've finished the first three of the series and enjoyed them greatly. I went online to see if I could order books 4, 5, and 6. Five and Six are available, but four...ah four...you can't get it. Not for under sixty bucks for a stinking paperback copy. What the hell? So, if anyone out there has the Sun Sword book 4, Sea of Sorrows, by Michelle West, I'd love to borrow it. I promise not to sell it on Ebay.

Sick

Yeah, we're sick again. Got a problem with that? Mary has spent the last 4 nights in our bed. She goes to sleep in her own bed but in the middle of the night she stumbles over to our bedroom and crawls in between Ian and I. Surprisingly, I don't really mind having her there, so I don't make a fuss about it. She's been pretty crabby for the last couple of days, and now she has some bowel issues, the poor wee thing. She's miserable, poopy and feverish.

Other than Mary being crabby the weekend went well. Ian was off all weekend and it was nice to have him around, even if we didn't get much done. He was going to finish cleaning up the leaves in the yard, but it was so incredibly windy (welcome to Saskatchewan!) that he couldn't really do anything. I baked bread, cookies and cinnamon buns. Friday I got out by myself and picked up some groceries and a new car seat for Frances. She's already grown too big for the infant bucket seat that we had, so we had to get a great big convertible one. How I long for the days of my childhood when carseats were just baskets that you plunked the baby into, and you could hold the baby in your lap if you really wanted too. I'll tell you a secret, on our way home from the town Foul Supper, that's exactly what I did. Rather than fight to get Frances into her stupid car seat, I just held her. I'm a bad mother. :)

Nothing much else has happened since my last post. Mary's worn her halloween costume every single day. It's windy and cold. Frances ate an entire jar of baby food, and then downed 8 more ounces of formula. She's going to be eating steak and chips before long. I tried to make friends with the lady across the street by bringing over cinnamon buns, but her little boy wouldn't get her, he wanted to talk to me his self, and when he was done he just shut the door. Sigh. Who needs friends when you have squirrels, right?

Don't Make Me Go....

To the potty. This morning when I woke up I decided that we were going to start potty training in earnest. No more pull-ups, no more messing around. So, I put Mary in Big Girl Panties. They were very nice, and we spent a great deal of time admiring them and discussing what it means to wear Big Girl Panties. Every hour I took Mary to the potty where we sat, sang songs, and discussed the fish on the shower curtain. About 5 minutes after one of our potty breaks I heard Mary start crying in the basement. I knew what had happened, she had "made water" and discovered the down side of Big Girl Panties. I comforted her, cleaned her up and told her that next time she should try to get on the potty. Ten minutes later, more crying. Repeat comforting. Twenty minutes later there was a heartbroken wail from the basement, and Mary started sobbing in earnest and saying "BAD GIRL!" I cleaned her up, cuddled her and put her into pull ups. Obviously she's just not ready, and I guess she was feeling pressured or something. I've never called her bad girl for accidents, but she was clearly upset, and I don't really want to keep up with the potty training if she feels so stressed about it.

Halloween was fun, I guess. Mary wore her Elephant costume and we visited about 6 houses. Every time someone opened the door Mary would barge right in, ignoring the candy. I guess she couldn't figure out why we would knock on all these peoples doors and not go in for a visit. She took far more pleasure greeting the "boys" (everyone is either a Mummy, a Daddy, a Grandma, a grandpa or a boy) that came to our door, I think.



Mary the ambivalent elephant. She cheered up a bit once we got outside.




The shirt says "Your Misery Makes Me So Happy." She's my little life and soul sucking vampire. Luckily she's cute.




And here is why that dress is so very appropriate. Every time I put her down she makes that face...

Give Me The Time of Day

My favourite time of day is at 6:45 AM or so. It's when Frances usually gets up (if we are lucky). I'm not a morning person, I never have been, but having children has forced early mornings on me, and I'm really starting to enjoy them. Anyways, Frances wakes up around the same time as Ian does when he's starting work at 8. He will go bring her to me, and I change her diaper and give her a bottle. She's always incredibly cute and cheerful in the mornings, and it's the best time to cuddle with her. After getting some cuddles in and eating, I put her back in her crib for a while. She's always happy to go back (nothing really makes her unhappy in the mornings) and she looks at her mobile, plays with her toys and chats with herself. I climb back into bed, and if things are timed right, Mary gets up about 5 minutes later. She runs into my room, carrying Lightening McQueen and White Owl, and scrambles into bed with me. After getting everyone organized, the stuffed toys under the blankets, she snuggles beside me while I doze for another 45 minutes. At around 8 she starts saying "G'up, Mummy, g'up!" If I don't get up right away she opens the curtains, pulls the blankets off of me, and heads into the kitchen and starts moving chairs around. I don't know what it is about our morning routine that I love so much, but I really get miserable if it's interrupted.

Last night when we were putting Frances to bed Mary just had to be a part of it. She "helped" me carry the baby to her room, gave her hugs and kisses, and "helped" me put the baby in her crib. As I was leaving the room she lingered there for a moment by the crib watching Frances, and when I told her we had to go, she said "Night night, Frances. Sweet dreams, I love you." My heart melted. It was the very first time that Mary has ever said I love you with any real meaning and without a great deal of prompting. It's a lot easier for me to like Frances when I see how much she and Mary love each other. It's amazing, when Frances is grumpy and crying, all it takes is a smile from Mary to make her happy.

I've decided to try to blog at least once every couple of days. Even if it's just a bit of Mummy blogging (this is a mummy blog, after all), it makes me feel better to organize my thoughts and put them down. Today I am going to call a 1-800 number that came with Ian's work health plan. I had forgotten all about it until I was obsessively rearranging the magnets on the fridge yesterday, and I realized that it is there for exactly the type of problems that I'm having. Wish me luck, hopefully talking to someone who doesn't know me at all will help a bit.

Sooooooo Cute!

So, on Saturday Mary and I got our hair cut. She went first and it was very traumatic for all involved, especially the poor young thing who was trying to give Mary a fashionable cut. The girl kept trying to cut it "properly" rather than just snipping straight and quick, and Mary kept screaming, bawling and shoving the scissors and comb away. It was eventually accomplished and all the hair that kept falling in Mary's face has been transformed into incredibly cute, thick bangs. When I was getting my hair cut Ian, Frances and Mary wandered around the mall. They came back just as the girl was finishing up and Mary came right up to me, her beautiful blue eyes wide with amazement, and she said "Mummy! Oh, Mummy is SOOOO CUTE!!" It was so adorable I could have puked. Unfortunately the haircut is so bad that it is taking all my willpower not to take Ian's razor and shave all my hair off to start again. Ugh.

Monday

Is it Monday already? Is it almost the end of October already? You certainly wouldn't know it by the weather, it's another gorgeous day outside. When Frances wakes up from her nap I am determined to take the girls for a long walk...This is Saskatchewan after all, the weather will change in a heartbeat and snow will fly soon I'm sure. The town has a snow fence up at the end of our street (less than a block away) to keep the snow drifting out in the open prairie, rather than in our driveway.

I'm still not feeling quite right in the head. Last week did get a bit better, but I'm still scaring myself. I may go to the doctor about it, I really don't know what else to do. When I'm not weeping or baking like a crazy person, I worry....not just normal worrying, but really bizarre things, overwhelming panicky things that take my breath away and make it so I can't sleep at night. I worry that Ian will be in a terrible accident on the way home from work, I worry that my father will die, I worry that my mother will die, I dwell on the terror of me dying and not getting to see the girls grow up (that one really makes me sick), I worry that Mary will fall down the stairs and break her neck to the point that sometimes I won't let her go down the stairs by herself. I don't worry about Frances, but I do worry about the fact that I don't worry enough about Frances. When we go for walks I'm afraid that Mary will get hit by a car, I don't walk near the tracks anymore (even though Railway Ave is a decent distance from the actual tracks) because I'm terrified that Mary will escape and get smucked by a train. I worry that I have cancer, I worry that there's something wrong with my womanly bits (for good reason that I won't go into here). I worry that I'm going to get pregnant again which, along with my womanly bit issues affects Ian a great deal. I know that I'm not being rational, I know that it doesn't make sense, but once I start I get so wrapped up that I can hardly breathe. I worry that if I go to the doctor he'll put me on anti-somethings, and I had such a terrible experience with Effexor 5 years ago that the thought of going through that terrifies me.

Ahem. Anyways. Here are some pictures.


My closest and only friend in MIlestone, Mr. Squirrel. When I took this picture I got close enough that I reached out and touched his tail.




My girls hanging out on the couch. Frances is really turning into a beautiful looking baby.




My first ever pie. I learned very quickly that I despise making pastry, but boy was it heavenly. The apple and blueberry filling was delicious, and the crust was flaky and melted in your mouth.




Frances in one of our new, incredibly cheap, Walmart rocking chairs in the basement.




Mary and Ian with our Jack'O'Lanterns that we carved last night. Not the most artistically talented family, but we had fun.



Spooky...

Blue

Yesterday was a particularly bad day. I won't go into it too much here because I know I'll sound crazy and desperate for attention and pity. I'm feeling a little crazy and out of control in a very bad way to be honest, and I'm not really sure what to do about it. Once I figure it out, maybe I'll let you know, maybe I won't. Needless to say, I'm lonely, unhappy, and bordering on scaring myself (check that, I crossed the scaring myself line yesterday). Certain people in my life aren't helping by dumping their own issues on my door, making me feel like even worse of a mother than I already do (which is pretty awful, given the thoughts I've been having about the newest member of our family), and essentially blaming me and my children for their marital problems.

By the way, I hope no one who does take anti-depressants was offended by my last post (Mary). I know that those drugs do help a lot of people. My problem is when you go to the doctor, say "I'm feeling a little sad" and they immediately put you on powerful, mind altering drugs. I also don't like the trend of medicating pre-schoolers for things like depression, ADHD, and bi-polar disorder. In my opinion, toddlers are by nature bi-polar, hyper, and attention deficient, and they shouldn't be drugged for any of those things.

So, I haven't much else to say. This past week I have baked more cinnamon buns, a beautiful apple blueberry pie (I despise making pastry, but man I'm good at it!), graham crackers for Mary and today I will bake some more bread to go with the beef barley stew I'm making for supper tonight. I think this weekend I will start baking sugar cookies to send to Ian's work, to give to the many families with kids that live on our block, and to stuff my sorrows with. Sugar cookies have to be better than the bottle of coconut rum in the liquor cabinet, right?

Equal (Rant)

"The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal."

Have you read the short story Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut? If you haven't, you should (you can find it here http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html). It's scary in its plausibility.

It comes to mind because this morning on CBC radio the Sunday Edition host was interviewing a man named Christopher Lane who has just had a book published. His book is called "Shyness: How Normal Behaviour Became an Illness" and it's all about the mental health industry. Yes, I say industry, because that's what it is, an industry run by the drug companies. Did you know that if you are nervous about talking in front of a group of people, that if you don't like the idea of eating by yourself in a restaurant, if your hands tremble a little when you meet new people, or if you don't like using public washrooms you are sick in the head? You likely have Social Anxiety Disorder, but never fear, all you have to do is take the drug Paxil or one of these powerful anti-psychotics (or possibly a combination) and you'll be all better. Never mind the side effects, just take your drugs and you can be "normal." Oh, and don't forget to drug your child if they show any anti-social behaviour too. There's all sorts of antidepressants and anti-psychotic drugs out there that you can use to alter your child's developing personality and central nervous system. Don't worry if you come down with the newest "disorder" in the books, Apathy disorder. It's actually caused by the drugs that you're taking to keep "normal," but they're developing new drugs to take for that one too. Good God, no, don't stop taking those likely unnecessary antidepressants, we'll just add on another drug to combat your drug induced apathetic haze, that way the drug companies will make twice as much off one person! Oh, you're a woman too? Well, if you have a period, you likely have Pre-Menstrual dysphoric disorder. It used to be relatively rare, but the drug companies decided that PMS would be a good thing to make money off of, so they've changed the diagnoses criteria to be identical. We'll just give you yet another antidepressant to deal with those ugly female hormones (and make more money for the drug companies too).

Yes, there are people out there who are mentally ill, people who do need these drugs. Not everyone does though, and the way things are going people who aren't drugged for something are going to be a minority. Why does every personality quirk and emotion have to be a disease, and what exactly is this "normal" that everyone is striving to reach by drugging themselves? You know, sadness is normal, anxiety is normal, a little fear, well that's normal too. We live in a scary world, bad things happen that we should feel sad and fearful about. Anxiety isn't always a bad thing, it's a natural thing and it can keep us safe. Being shy and bookish is not a mental disorder, it's the way I am, and the way millions of people throughout history have been. Yes, being a shy, awkward, bookish teenager was miserable, but I wouldn't take it back in a million years. I wouldn't want to have been drugged to be more "normal," those years helped form me into the person I am today, a person that I actually like and am proud of most of the time.

I'm trying to judge when the best time for me to pack up my family and move to a remote commune will be. We'll be the whacko's in the bush who refuse to drug their children, who refuse to be "normal." Anyone want to come with me? I seem to be able to make a mean loaf of bread...

Huh, who knew I could rant so early in the morning?

Busy

I'm giving up on clever titles. I just can't be bothered.

Mary's toe is doing well, though I'm quite positive that the nail will fall off. It was pretty ugly, red and swollen for a while, and although the swelling has gone down, the toenail is a dark blackish purple and she won't let me touch it (can you blame her?) Anyways, she's doing well, and keeping busy.

Frances had her second set of vaccines on Wednesday, and boy was that miserable. She dealt very well with the pokes, but as the day went on she got more and more miserable and feverish, the poor little thing. She recovered nicely by Thursday morning though.

Tonight Ian and I are going to a Medieval feast in Moose Jaw of all places. I'm really looking forward to it, this will be the first time that Ian and I have been out together without the girls since mid-July.

This week I baked:

More of Goody's wonderful oat bread,
2 loaves of old fashioned rye bread,
a large banana coffee cake,
2 dozen lemon honey cookies,
2 loaves of sourdough,
and I'm in the process of baking cinnamon buns.

Diet? pfft. The good news is that I get lots of exercise kneading the dough.

Shoot Me

I am a terrible mother. At least, that's how I feel right now.

So, I was sitting at the computer in the big wooden chair when Mary came up to visit me. She was feeling peevish today, and she whimpered to be picked up. So, I moved the chair back a bit so I could do just that. As I moved the chair, I heard and felt a distinct crunchy sound. As soon as I heard it I just closed my eyes and uttered a soft prayer "Dear God, please don't let that have been what I think it was." I then looked at Mary, whose eyes were wide and filled with tears, her mouth wide open in a silent shriek of pain, and her lips blue from holding the silent shriek for so long without breathing. I quickly grabbed her and pulled her up into my lap, and the nail of her second toe was already turning black, and blood was leaking from beneath it. She started to scream in earnest, and I rushed her up to the bathroom to tend her wound, babbling apologies the whole way. She screamed for a good long time, and let me tell you, while I once believed things would be better when she could talk, it's not. There's nothing worse than your baby sobbing "Mummy, it hurts!" over and over again, knowing that you were the one that hurt her, and not being able to do anything about it. She seems to be recovering, though she won't put her toe on the ground which results in a hobbling pathetic sort of limp, which dashes my heart into even smaller pieces every time I see it. She will occasionally whimper softly "Mummy, I need cuddles...it hurts." She's in bed now, but she milked every ounce she could get out of my guilty conscience before snuggling up with Lightening McQueen and going to sleep.

Other than attempting to rip my daughters toe nails off, I had a decent weekend. Yesterday DeeDee was in town visiting her folks and we went over for a short visit which turned into a 6 hour visit complete with an excellent supper. Her Mum is a very neat woman, her house is jam packed full of niknacks and Mrs. DeeDee loved Mary and Frances so much that she made me promise to come back. It was nice to spend time with a friend (sweet jesus I miss having friends) and there is even photographic evidence of DeeDee holding an infant! Today I made jelly. Lots and lots of jelly. Mint, apple and cranberry merlot. My mincemeat is soaking in its own juices, and all I have to do is get my act together and make a tonne of salsa or chutney and Christmas gifts will be done.