week 15

i've been following this blog for a few weeks. she's a few weeks ahead of me in her pregnancy and i'm enjoying her weekly photographs with the fruit or vegetable the corresponds with her pregnancy. and her clothes are so cute. makes me want to go shopping.

this week, i'll be 15 weeks along and baby shulba #2 is the size of an apple. crazy.

not that simple

do you read the magazine, "real simple"? i've had a subscription for a couple years (christmas present!) and it's such a pretty magazine - it's sometimes hard to refrain from ripping out pages to "save". old collaging habits. they always have recipes in them and the cover often says things like, "meals in 5 ingredients or less" or this month's says, "15 minute dinners: prep and forget it". to a slacker in the kitchen like myself, this never fails to make me think, "ooh...that sounds good!"

when i get to that section in the magazine, these recipes ALWAYS are a ridiculous amount of work (in my non-chef like opinion) and they include ingredients that i'm never going to go looking for in a store. in the current issue, the recipes include items such as Gruyere, bulger, Arborio rice, and fennel bulbs for example. even if i had the time to comb my grocery store for the ingredients and then stand by the stove, waiting for things to "evaporate" or become "soft and creamy", i could never make these recipes.

so if you enjoy a challenge in the kitchen, trying new things, and savouring the subtle hints of this and that in your arugula salad - these recipes are for you! (rach, i know you recently had a lovely arugula salad somewhere and this last sentence is really aimed at you - i bet you make meals from this magazine, don't you?) if you like to make something in 5 minutes and aren't looking for hints of anything - you and i should swap recipes. ;)

it's tough being (almost) 2

ben's latest thing is picking up containers of toys, dumping them out, and running through them. i am not a fan of this stage so i've picked a battle. picking up things you dump out. seems like a logical enough battle, right? turns out, ben is fairly stubborn in this area. he has spent some time in "time out" for not listening to mommy and not picking up his toys. i try to help him but he will pick up a toy and then throw and laugh. back to time out.

so yesterday morning, ben was whining and whining for something and we thought he wanted blueberries. tim got the blueberries out and gave him a little bowl of them. ben screamed in frustration and dumped the berries out on the ground. i gave him a stern (ha) "no dumping out your food! let's pick these up and mommy will help you." it didn't go over well. off i hauled him to time out (which is in his bedroom). after a minute, i went and got him. i reminded him why he was there, asked for a "sorry" which he gave and asked if he was ready to pick up his blueberries. "yeah!" was his answer. but in reality, the real answer was no when we got back to the blueberries. i sat him down next to them and i picked up some and made a little pile for him. he wouldn't pick them up. so i walked away while he sat there. when he tried to leave the spot, i took him back, sat him by the berries, and told him to pick them up. then i went and continued to unload the dishwasher.

(i normally wonder about parents who take pictures of their children who are doing something they shouldn't be doing but after SO much time spent sitting here moaning and groaning, i couldn't resist. sorry, parents, for judging you.)

well, it turns out this is a MUCH better way to doing a time out! making him sit by the thing he has to pick up gives him all the opportunity in the world to pick up his stuff! a much more logical consequence. ben chose to sit next to his blueberries and cry. he moaned. he kicked them a little with his feet. he dumped the berries that i'd picked up for him out of the bowl. he cried some more. but when he started to scoot himself away, i went over, placed back next to the berries and said, "you are in time out until you pick up your berries." and then walked away.

i started to wonder if ben would be sitting there all day. i wondered if this was worth the battle. it seemed to be torture for him but after a good 10 minutes of sitting and crying about spilled blueberries, he picked them up. when he started, i went and helped him. when he was done, i gave him a hug. it was SO super nanny.

oh, parenting - why must you be so trial and error?

retraction

after posting such an opinionated post about name choosing, i spent the 45 minute drive from white rock to abbotsford thinking of boy names last night. i realized that my cohen example isn't really what i meant. i guess i don't need the nickname to be it's OWN name...it just needs to be an acceptable sounding nickname. (and cohen has been overruled because it's a little too different a name to go with shulba...imagine always having to spell both your first AND last name) also, i don't feel as strongly about my "rules" when it comes to girls names. so yes, just some extra thoughts on my previous post.

all about the nickname

i thought about baby names long before i ever had a baby. when we had ben, benjamin was the one and only boys name that tim and i agreed on. if this next baby is another boy, we are in trouble for names.

i would imagine everyone has their own criteria for name picking. my personal criteria is, "does it sound okay with our last name? (therefore doesn't start with s and doesn't end in a)", "does it work as an adult name as well as a child's name?", and most importantly, "does it have a good nickname?". To me, it is all about the nickname. In life, your name WILL be shortened (unless it's already one syllable) so it's better to plan the nickname right away instead of leaving it up to someone else. I was always Rebecca - no short forms until about grade 5 when some friends overheard my brother calling me "bec" at school. the nickname stuck and i've been bec from then on. i was lucky. this is not such a bad nickname. but think about how cute it would have been to be calling me "becca" as a little kindergartener. i missed out on that one. ;)

so i like a longer name that can be shortened. we will call this kid by the shortened version but when he is older, he can use the longer version for business associates or on his business cards. yep - very important. ;)

so this is my naming obsession. give me a name, i shorten it to one syllable and then decide if i like it. i'd like to give some examples here of names that i like but i don't like shortened...but i don't want to offend anyone. hmm... like cohen. i quite like this name but i want to then call him, "co" and that just doesn't work for me. start going through boys names that you know and you will begin to realize why our list was so short. if only i wasn't so crazy about the nickname - this would be way easier.

21 month old humour...

ben loves to go to the playground behind our house - you've seen it in many photos. on one play structure, he always runs to this hole and sticks his head through and shouts before turning around and going down the slide.

i showed him these photos the other day and he laughed so hard at this photo. after first few times of looking at it, i thought to video his reaction. here's ben reenacting what's happening in the above photo:

now he watches this video and laughs.

coffee fast

so i've had lots of random things to blog about in the last 3 months but i felt like they all led to "are you pregnant?" questions. but here's one of them.

i was pretty surprised to discover i was pregnant (i know, i know - why would i be surprised? i know how this happens, right?) and spent the first week in disbelief. i felt terrible that i'd drank so much coffee in the last month and wondered how i was going to go off it. two days later, i woke up and had a major aversion to tim's cup of coffee. i had no desire for my own cup. just like that. the thought of coffee made me feel a little queasy for about a month. after that, i would have a cup here or there in the afternoon. by month 3, i was on regular decaf coffees from tim hortons whenever we went there but still nothing in the morning. isn't it amazing how the body works? i was happy i didn't have to control the coffee intake myself - my body took care of it for me.

two marches ago...

in march '09, we painted the future timbit's bedroom.

i always had the best intentions of decorating it with cute baby things but 2 years later the walls are still bare. unbelievable. but i guess that just makes it easier to decorate when ben moves out of this room this summer. yep, he's making room for the baby. we're pregnant - due late september!

i'm slightly horrified at how much i'm showing already at just a little over 3 months. i guess that's what happens when you have absolutely no muscles to hold anything back! while i'm still apprehensive to be adding to our family so quickly (yes, i know - it's not THAT quickly...but it feels like ben is a handful - how could i be lugging an infant around as well?!), our excitement for a second is growing everyday. tim's first reaction to finding out that we were pregnant was, "ben could really use a playmate." :)

at the moment, ben loves babies. he shouts out, "baby!" and "hi!" when he sees a stroller with a baby in it. he loves our friends' baby, kylie - mostly pointing at her hair, eyes, nose, and bellybutton. and he carries his own baby around sometimes (accurately named, "baby"), talking to him, attempting to feed him blueberries, and trying to fit both of them in his chair without squishing him. i know this could change when it's our own baby and it takes all the attention away from him BUT it's still nice to see him enjoying babies now.

napping window

there's always so many things that i could be doing while ben naps. i definitely should take a shower and then there's always cleaning up around the house (today, there's a LOT of cleaning to be done). there's online stuff like tupperware stuff and banking and ben is usually cranky when i'm on the computer so it has to be done during naps. i could blog, check email, and update my status. but some days, taking a nap myself sounds like my favourite idea.

today is one of those days. last night, when we got home from white rock at about 10pm, we carried ben inside and put him in his crib like we always do. he always wakes up for this transfer but falls asleep again quietly and for the most part, quickly. not last night. we could hear him thrashing around in there, knocking his soothers against the bars, and giving little shouts here and there. when we went to bed at 10:45pm, i tiptoed in to adjust his blanket and he sat up. he jumped up and wanted to get out of bed. i got him up, gave him a drink of water, and let him sit in our bed for a few minutes. then we put him back to bed. he moaned, shouted, and cried for a half hour. i went in a couple times and that just upset him more. we left him awhile longer - no sleeping happened. finally, at 12:15am, i sent tim in to help settle him. this just got ben more worked up and tim left the room of a wailing baby. we sat for about 2 minutes listening to the crying and then went and got him again. i brought him into our room and told him he'd have to lay still and go to sleep. he did his very best to be very still. every so often, he'd wiggle but stayed in his spot in the middle. finally, at 12:45am, i sat up to see if he was sleeping - his eyes were open. this is SO my kid. (it takes me forever to fall asleep too) so i picked him up, took him back to his bed, and tucked him in. i went back to bed with my fingers crossed. he eventually fell asleep there - quietly this time. there's really no way we could ever have him in our bed as we're both such light sleepers.

okay - too many details there, i'm sure but all this to say, when ben woke up at 7:30am this morning, i was bagged. 6.5 hours is not enough in the least for me! i figured his 3 hours awake stint in the middle of the night would lead to at LEAST an 8:30am sleep-in! no such luck.

so the napping window that i speak of in my title - it's the first 20 minutes of ben's nap. during this window, if i want a nap, i have to take it asap. that gives me at LEAST an hour of sleep and hopefully i will wake up before ben. if i don't lay down practically right when he does, i am woken up by him a short time later and am in a terrible sleepy mode. i feel much worse than if i hadn't napped at all. these people who take 10 or 20 minute naps and feel good when they wake up? i'm SO jealous of them! i haven't taken a cat nap in my life!

today i missed the napping window. i got going on online banking and boom - an hour later, i haven't gone down for my nap! good thing i didn't because as i write this last couple sentences, i can hear ben moaning as he wakes up. i may be a bit tired but at least it's nothing that a cup of coffee can't cure!

coolest idea ever...

this is SUCH a cute idea to take with you when you go grocery shopping with your little kid! AND what a great idea to use words on the cards instead of just pictures! wow. LOVE it. go check out the tutorial at She Wears Flowers.

the latest food phase

i've blogged about being a phase person before. i like something and that's all i eat or listen to, or watch, etc. for an extended period of time. most often phases are about food or music...though i guess tv could be included. i watched a LOT of Dog the Bounty Hunter before i got sick of it. the current phase i am in is the quesadilla phase. one of the few things that sounds like a good lunch to me is a quesadilla. it could be just cheese and black beans or often there's tomatoes in it. if i'm lucky, i have leftover chicken to throw in. it's not really what's on the inside - it's about dipping it in salsa, it going well with diet coke, and it being filling that makes me love them lately.

sometimes being a stay at home mom, i just want to get out of the house. there's no better place to go hang out for awhile than at a fast food place for lunch. this sounds horrible, doesn't it? but i've always loved fast food and ben really loves timbits. so lunch at the wendy's/tim hortons combo restaurant seems like such a great idea! i feed ben his lunch at home and then we go and get mommy a combo and ben, a timbit. i'm making it sound like i do this all the time - i really don't. but if i'm out and about in the morning and thinking of what to make for lunch, something that makes me come home instead of going to wendys is a quesadilla. it's very good for me to have SOMETHING to keep me eating at home!

quesadillas sound somewhat unhealthy but i use whole grain tortillas and low fat cheddar. black beans are a good source of protien that i often add to my quesadilla as well. salsa is 0 points by the way to all you WW fans. so while it's still not the healthiest of lunches, it's better than the current desired alternative.

and all this writing is making me hungry. unfortunately, i am out of tortillas...looks like i'll have to make a quick trip to the store before lunch!

sunshine

this morning, we went for a family walk in the sunshine. ben happily jumped in puddles and pet every dog that walked by. in the afternoon, tim and ben played in the backyard with no jackets on - the sun was so warm! could this be spring? love it!

this past week's vocabulary development was changing the words "mama" and "dada" to momm-ee and dad-ee - extra emphasis on the ees. also, ben has figured out what it means to have 2 of something and when he does have two of something, he hold them up and says, "do!"

"head down - power through" - michael bluth

every fall, i get a cold and at some point lose my voice from teaching. not this fall though! way to go, me! umm...but i'm pretty sure it is going to happen tomorrow. my first lost voice of spring. last week i called in sick to TOC (illegal - i know) and this week, i just can't do it again! i had these three thursdays booked in a row in the gym for PE and i've been loving PE so to cancel last week was lame. let's cross our fingers for a good sleep tonight and tomorrow, i'll bring lots of tea and cough drops with me. note to self: blow the whistle more often than yelling.

just my job...

a week or two ago, i was TOCing as a PE teacher but i didn't have the gym to use because there was a basketball tournament going on. it sounded sketch at first but i really had the easiest day ever. my morning consisted of a prep, then went the Vice Principal to the middle school with all 3 classes of grade 1s and all 3 classes of 2s to watch a game, then another "prep" (in which i do nothing), and then recess in the staff room. after recess, i taught three classes of PE in the students' classrooms with exercise stations which was great. lunch. after lunch i had an hour of "prep" so i asked the VP if i should offer my extra two hands to any other teachers for that time. he responded with, "if you want to or you can just prepare for the kindergarten PE at the end of the day." he and i were going to be teaching 2 kindergarten classes together in the music room and we were just going to be doing the stations that i'd done between recess and lunch. i've taught PE classes with him before and sometimes i feel like a student teacher but hey! i'm getting paid to be there and it's nice to have someone else lead. :) anyways, i go and help in a grade 1 class cutting and gluing until 2pm when it's time for K PE. i get to the music room and the VP isn't there yet so i set up the stations. the two classes arrive and he's still not there. i have them sit quietly and watch me demo each station then i put them in groups, start the music (to which they "exercise" to). they go around and get through all the stations once. we stretch and their teachers come back to pick them up. the class is finished and the VP never came. i figured he got caught in a meeting or something but really, it would have been silly to have two of us there anyways. i went to the office to touch base before leaving and he had his door closed and was meeting so i left a note in his box saying everything went well. great and low key day.

at 4pm, i'm at home and i get a phone call. it's the VP. he cannot believe that he forgot to come to the K class. i'm laughing, saying it was no trouble while he apologizes up and down for not being there. i told him i figured he was in meeting. he was like, "i wasn't in a meeting - i just forgot! so, next time you're here at school, come by my office because i have a starbucks card with your name on it for looking after that class on your own," he says. "whaat? you know they pay me to be the TOC, right? i don't need a starbucks card!" i reply. "nope! come and get this card when you're in and thanks for doing that today." well, who's to argue, right? next time i was in, i came and got the $10 starbucks card for my (non) troubles.

today, i splurged on a grande macchiato AND a scone at starbucks for a nice tuesday morning treat with my son. ben was happy to be drinking "awa" (water) out of a starbucks cup with a straw and was pleased with the stale cookie i'd brought him from home. and what i remembered as i relished my lemon cranberry scone was that the best kind of starbucks is free starbucks.

excuses, excuses.

well, this sickness has taken me down for the count. i know i wasn't doing so great on the blogging front this past month but having this sinus infection(?)/cough/eye infection hasn't helped. so i have spent the last week in sweatpants and hoodies, napping when ben naps, and drinking juice. i'm starting to think that i should try the daily blogging project that sharelle and andie have been doing since i've been enjoying their daily entries and could use a little inspiration. hmm...check back soon...i promise i'll have something going here!

just a little snow

on sunday, we woke up to snow which was exciting. ben shouted lots of "no! no!" while pointing out the window. at 8am, tim and ben headed out to shovel the driveway before church.

when we got on the roads an hour later, there was no snow on them and by the end of the day, all our snow was practically gone. that's lower mainland, BC for you.

TOC life

the nice thing about being a Teacher On Call (TOC) is that i WANT to work. don't get me wrong - i love teaching but when i worked full time, i woke up many mornings wishing that i didn't have to go to work. i've worked 2 - 3 days every week this past month and even though i hate shipping my baby off to different houses everyday, i've been so happy to be getting some work in! it's a nice feeling to want to work.

this morning, however, i would have called in sick if i'd had a full time job. i woke up every hour in the night with a dry mouth, a sore neck, and a headache, dreading my alarm going off. but i'm the TOC - how can i call in sick? in fact, i didn't even know the number of the principal to call if i wanted to call in sick. so of course, i got up, popped some extra strength tylenol, went to work, and taught grade 4. those poor kids were most likely not my biggest fans by the end of the day though i did play quite a few games of math bingo with them.

so this week, i'm glad i'm not working tomorrow.