DON'T GIVE UP ON ME!!!! I WILL RETURN!!!!!

Oh man - I know - this is getting ridiculous - it's been like 10 days since I last posted - and I promised I would be getting back on the blogging bandwagon not that long ago. How quickly I forget. *sigh*

So here's the deal (deep breath): I'm still in Ontario, husband is back in Manitoba working, Ellery is already 6 weeks old, dial-up sucks and that's why I'm all but ignoring the Internet, I can't even check my cell messages because my voicemail doesn't work in the boonies, I forgot how many bugs are out in the country during the summer, it's so hot right now that my hair is in curls from all the humidity, I fear that I've been away from the city so long that soon my friends won't remember me, I've had the flu for about 4 days, Ellery has started shrieking in excitement when she hears husbands voice (I hold the phone to her ear when he calls), I didn't brush my teeth today, I just killed a mosquito, I'm feeling lost in my own life these days, Monica is coming down from the Bahamas in July and I can't freaking wait, I really wish I could go to an Ikea store tomorrow, my nose is itchy, and I'm exhausted.

Oh - and how come I blocked out how many times a baby needs to be changed in a day? How did I possibly forget that? It hasn't been that long since I was taking care of a baby all day!

Anyways, that's the scoop on me - I'll be back in the city next week for sure - if my family doesn't kick me out sooner.

Long Lost...Treasures?

While I've been home at my parent's in Ontario, I'm finding the days slow - how I like them - but since I don't get out a whole hell of a lot, I've begun helping my mom de-clutter. They have an enormous house and waaaaay too much crap.

I'm being "helpful" by secretly tossing little things out that I know she won't notice, but I've also volunteered my services to donate the stuff she can't bear to toss. At least then maybe I can encourage her to part with some of it.

So in an attempt to show her how easy it is to get rid of things when you really get into that mind frame, I started out in my old bedroom. I began with the dresser, which, even though I haven't lived there in 10 years, is miraculously still stuffed with my crap, and things that have just gotten shoved in it over the years with hurried cleanings.

The first drawer was easy peasy - cut offs from one day last summer when I was so hot I couldn't take it anymore, so I stood in the yard and ripped the legs off my jeans, the t-shirt from the same day which had also been ripped to shreds, a pair of actual shorts I can't believe I ever actually fit into, a Gap hoodie my dad bought me to leave there so I would quit stealing his clothes when I was cold, and a slinky little dress I had worn for the Millennium celebrations. I got rid of everything but the hoodie.

Second drawer was easy too - for some reason it was full of money rolls...empty ones, but money rolls nonetheless. My mom must have a shitload of change to roll somewhere...

Third drawer things got a little more complicated. It was full of little things I had gotten when my grandma passed away a couple years ago; her engagement ring, a scarf she'd worn a lot, some skeleton keys that had been my grandpa's when he worked on the railroad, our family tartan and crest, a copy of the newspaper with her obituary in it. I moved all those things into my hope chest for safe keeping.

The fourth drawer was full of more clothes, which I promptly dumped into the donation box.

The fifth was full of junk my mom needs to deal with - though I helped by throwing a couple things out, hehe.

But the last drawer...well, it was full of my things...and it was quite the little collection I might say. Ahem.

In it, to name a few things, were my garter from my wedding, the tiara I wore, a stuffed penis that I was forced to wear on my shirt during my stagette, two small bottles of booze I had picked up in the Dominican a few years ago - I bought them because the booze is supposed to be an aphrodisiac - I put them in the garbage pile, but then thought better of it and put them in the keep pile :) , a lighter, and the icing on the cake, a pair of handcuffs.

Yeah. So. That was an interesting drawer, and it brought back some fond memories, hehe.

But now I'm a little concerned about what I might find by helping my mom go through her stuff...

That Impish Grin Says It All...

Relaxation, home-cooked meals, leisurely walks, country air, and absolutely nothing to do but watch my baby girl...that is nearly the epitome of heaven. And from the grins Ellery has been flashing (just look at her picture), she feels the same way.

Hope you all have a fabulous Friday, and a wonderful weekend!

Only In A Small Town...

Okay, quick back history of Saturday here to catch you all up to speed, so that you understand the hilarity, grossness, and small-townishness of this story...

My brother went to prom Saturday night, all decked out in the tux and everything. He wanted to drive his date around in his '69 Mustang. He's too young to actually drive it yet, so the husband offered to be his chauffeur. They came back to the house not long before the prom was supposed to start so we could snap some pictures of him and his date all dressed up, but when they went back out to start the 'Stang again, it wouldn't start.

Husband popped the hood to take a look, and noticed that some sort of animal had taken up residence alongside the motor, and had built one huge-ass nest for itself. With no sign of the animal, he began pulling the nest from the car, throwing huge handfulls of it on the driveway. Eventually they just went to prom in another car, and late that night husband and I put the car in neutral and pushed it farther into the driveway to get it out of the way.

Sunday morning...

After church, husband, my brother and my dad all went out to the driveway so they could show my dad where the nest had been under the hood. After they had been outside for a few moments, my mom and I heard my dad yell "Matthew, grab me that broom!" so we ran over to the window in time to see my dad looking underneath the car, husband yelling "Ian! (that's my dad) He's under the car! There he goes running up the bank!", then both of them scrambling up the bank after some sort of creature, and my brother standing staring at them both.

My mom and I were shocked to see the size of the animal that came out of that car, it was freaking enormous! By vehicle nest standards anyways...

But while we were expecting maybe squirrels or something, instead it was a huge brown, lumbering animal, like an overgrown rodent, dragging it's chubby butt across the yard into the "safety" of the row of trees behind the house. Husband started following it to see where it would go, and the stupid thing stopped in the trees, and apparently was too tired to run any further.

As my mom and I stood there with our mouths hanging open, my dad looked over at my brother, and in the best John Wayne-esque voice ever (and what made it even funnier is that he wasn't trying to sound like John Wayne) he said very slowly "Matthew, go in the house - and get me the 4-10 and one shell."

So then I started yelling "You're going to shoot it!?!?! What?!?! And my mom said to me in a sarcastic tone "Apparently it's suddenly legal to shoot a shotgun in town..." Then I handed the baby to my mom and went running for my camera, just as my brother was running out the door with the shotgun and the one shell my dad had asked for.

As I was coming back out of the bedroom I heard a "BOOM!" and knew it was too late. All I managed to get on camera was my dad sauntering back from the row of trees with the gun and then hearing him say "Well, now he knows what a 4-10 is anyways."

I couldn't help it, as sad as the situation was for that animal, my mom and I were killing ourselves laughing about the whole thing. The whole scenario lasted less than 5 minutes, but there was all this yelling and tracking, and a shotgun?!?!? I mean, where else could you shoot that in town, and basically have the cops wave at you as they drive by?

I went to look at the animal later, and holy hell! Was it ever scary looking! It had these two huge fangs and my dad guessed it to weigh about 16 pounds. That's a big animal to fit under a hood...

And I know, there will be those of you who think this is a really gross and mean story, but it was actually causing damage to the inside of my brother's car, and had already built a new nest within hours. So, though it may have been gross, it was still funny...

Odds and Ends

Ellery, husband and I are in Ontario, staying with my parents. Husband is on holidays at the moment, so we'll be here for nearly three weeks! And his parents literally live across a field and a highway from mine, so we'll be spending a lot of time there too.
I have to confess though, as much as I love everything about my hometown, my family, and this feeling of relaxed familiarity, I miss the city already...more than I thought I would.

Since I've been off work I've been hearing crazier and crazier things about my office and some of the jackasses that run that place. I've got to tell you - the more I hear, the less I want to go back! I was struggling with how I felt about it the last few months of work, and with the garbage that seems to be going down around there I may try to find somewhere else to work while I'm off this year.

I have 4 pounds left to lose before I am at my pre-pregnancy weight, which is great. But I'm going to work on getting below that, and have started using my dad's Bowflex while I'm home, just to kind of kick start my lazy ass. Fingers crossed for me - I am very, very lazy :)

Remember like a bajillion months ago, when I had that author, Gregory Lang, leave me a comment and ask me to write something for his new book? Well I did, and the book came out at the end of May, so I'm hoping to pick up a copy and give it to my dad for Father's Day...I figure what better present for my dad than a book about relationships between fathers and daughters, when one of the stories is actually about us?

I already got my first payment from EI!!! I almost fell off the couch when husband called to tell me that the other day. Imagine! The government paying you in 14 days, when they tell you your first cheque should come in the next 28 days. Miraculous.

Ellery has started smiling. And I'm not talking about gas smiles either. So far the only real ones have been at me, with a couple flashed at husband this morning, but they are most definitely real smiles! She'll listen to me talk, put her mouth into a little O shape, then squeak out a few sounds and I'll start talking right back to her, and she listens very intently before busting out with a huge grin. My heart melts every time.

This Sunday will be my 28th birthday. I have forgotten continually that it will be, and the husband has had to remind me numerous times. I don't think I have ever cared less in my life about my birthday...funny how a teeny little creature can do that to me.

Ellery's Birth Story

*Long, long, loooong post below, with all the gory details about the birth of Ellery. If you don't get through it, I totally understand :)

The moment she was handed to me.

Oh, and just as a precursor so you understand my foul mood - after being called in to be "induced" on Sunday, the gel didn't have any effect, and even though they promised I would be called in on the Monday to have the other gel, they bumped me. So no thanks to the hospital, my labour started naturally.

It had been raining all day on Monday (May 12th), just adding to my depressed mood. Finally, after finding me bawling for about the fourth time that day, husband said we should go for a walk in the rain, just to get out of the house, and maybe it would get contractions going. Never in a million years did we actually think that would work.
But sure enough, part way through our walk, I had a contraction. I wasn't too excited about it, because I'd been having them on and off for the past couple weeks. When we got home, husband decided he would write down what time it was at, and said we should keep track of them just in case.
Throughout that evening I had a couple more, and when husband went to bed I was having them every 30 minutes or so...again, nothing to get excited about. When they moved up to 25 minutes apart I barely noticed, but I kept writing them down. That lasted for about two contractions, then they were at 20 minutes apart. But still, I just kept waiting for them to stop.
They hurt pretty bad though, so I decided that I would just stay in the living room that night, instead of waking husband up each time I had one.
So I laid on the air mattress we still had blown up from one of husband's snoring nights, and I put the tv on, and dozed between each contraction, which by 1am were 15 minutes apart - but then they stayed there, till at 4 am I finally crawled into bed, because they hurt too bad.
Husband, observant man that he is, never even noticed my groans of pain until just before 7am, when he rolled over while I was in the middle of a contraction and said "Hey! Are you still having contractions?" And I grimaced yes, and then he sat up and said "WHAT!?!" And I told him they had been 15 minutes apart all night, but that the last one had only been seven.
That's when his eyes opened really wide, and I said "but I'm not really convinced I'm in labour." Then he looked at me like I had horns growing out of my head, and said that yes, he was pretty sure I was in labour, and that we should get ready to go to the hospital. He told me to let him know when I was having a contraction so he could write it down, then he ran to have a shower. When I yelled at him a few moments later, he stuck his head out of the bathroom and said, "Uh, that was only 6 minutes!"
I decided that there was only one person I would believe to tell me if I really was in labour or not, so just before 7 am, I called my mom. I told her I'd been having contractions all night, and that now they were 6 minutes apart, and was I really in labour?
She calmly said that yes, I most definitely was in labour, and that I should quit trying to talk myself out of it, and let Chris drive me to the hospital. I kept asking her if she was sure, and she said that contractions that far apart aren't false labour. So I said fine, and that I would keep her posted, then went for a quick shower, grabbed my bag, and we were on our way.
By the time we drove the 15 minutes to the hospital my contractions were 3-4 minutes apart, and I was surprisingly calm. But get this - after the triage nurse checked me out, she said that she might send me home! She said I was only 1-2 centimeters dilated, so she wanted me to come back when the contractions were worse! Um, hello? My contractions are 3 minutes apart, they hurt like a son of a bitch, and you want to send me home? I don't think so! So she made me get up and walk around the halls for an hour, and thank God, by the time she checked me again I was 3 centimeters dilated.
So, this went on for hours, my contractions staying 3 minutes apart, except that they were getting stronger and stronger - my doctors sending me to high risk (which is where I was supposed to go), then no, to regular labour and delivery, then no, back to high risk. And finally, finally getting me in to high risk at some point in the early evening...I think.
Once I got in a delivery room everything seemed to go very fast - I was dilating quickly, my water broke, and I finally asked for some morphine for the pain - which did absolutely nothing by the way. I was having very intense back labour. The only thing it did do was make me so groggy that I kept falling asleep and forgetting to breathe, so the husband kept hearing my heart rate monitor go off, and he would have to wake me and tell me to breathe!
Since the morphine didn't do much for my pain, I decided to do sterile water injections in my back. It's a procedure where they stick your low back with 4 needles, and inject sterile water under your skin. It's a way to avoid drugs, and it does something to the nerves in your back to lessen back labour.
That procedure hurts let me tell you - the pain of the needles was almost worse than the labour! And, all it resulted in was a half hour of me being acutely aware of the contractions in my abdomen. Geez.
I must say, I think I handled the contractions pretty well - I kind of pictured myself being like the crazy women on tv that are screaming at everyone. But with every one I would grab the husband's hand, squeeze really tight, close my eyes, and breathe. Besides the occasional swear I was quiet for the most part - focusing on the husband telling me to slow my breathing, and counting down for me.
By eight centimeters dilated I was feeling so nauseous from the pain of the contractions that I was dry heaving between them, occasionally throwing up. So I would just finish heaving and then I'd start another contraction - so not fun.
I think the husband was feeling a little helpless, because that's about the time he started telling me that maybe I should just get an epidural. I kept telling him I didn't want one, because man, I had made it this far and I really didn't want to have to do it. But after him repeatedly asking me, and the doctor and my nurse telling me that there was no point being a martyr, and after throwing up again, I just decided to do it.
After it was administered, and I felt a little better, the nurse and doctor came in at about 9:30pm and asked if I was feeling any pressure, and I said a little, but not like I had to push. At 9:45 I asked the husband to go call our parents to let them know we were just waiting till it was time to push now, and we'd let them know when they were grandparents.
Just as he left the room, the nurse came in to check my monitors, told me she'd be back to check on me, and I drifted off to a doze. Even in that drugged state, I suddenly became aware of the baby's heart rate monitor. I remember thinking, "hmm, that beep sounds kind of slow" so I peeled open my eyes and looked at the screen, and it said her heart rate was 76. I closed my eyes again for a second, and then opened my eyes again when I was like "Hang on - isn't it supposed to be somewhere around 140?" So I rolled on my back, and pushed on my belly, thinking maybe she had fallen asleep in there, then realized that it was slowing down more.
Suddenly my eyes were wide open, and I was clawing for the call button, and I remember the "oh my God" factor clicking in. One nurse walked in, took one look at the monitor, and started yelling for the doctor.
About 10 seconds later there were doctors and nurses running all over my room, I was on my back, the doctor looked and said "Alison, you have to push right now, the baby is right here!" and I was like "What!?!" I hadn't felt the urge to push at all - stupid epidural.
So about 1 minute later, the husband walked in to all that, me with my legs up, doctors yelling, and the nurse that was was holding my left leg, yelling at him to grab my other leg. I'm sure he almost had a heart attack walking in on that.
From the moment I pressed the call button, to the second Ellery made her appearance into the world took 6 minutes. At one point the husband looked at her heart rate monitor and it was down to 12, and I am so grateful I didn't see that. When she came out her cord was around her neck, and she was a scary shade of grey, but after a couple moments with the doctor, she let out a tiny squeak and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Six minutes of pushing resulted in this beautiful, perfect little creature, that has made my life more emotional and meaningful than anything else ever will.

Her and I this afternoon, almost 3 weeks old.