Life in the hutch

When we got on the shuttle to the hotel upon arrival, there was a family of four sitting on the bench seat behind Goose and I.  It was a short  ride to the hotel, but all the children behind us did during that ride was cough.  Loud, phlegmy, cringe-inducing coughs.  With each one I cringed a little bit and leaned forward a titch more, thinking “please don’t give it to us, please don’t give it to us”.

Fast forward a week, and I felt like we were that family on the shuttle to the airport.  As much as I would like to blame the family from our arrival, there seemed to be a pretty widespread

So now they are sick, and have been since a day or so before we came home.  I know that they are sick because they have the normal signs; runny noses, red chapped noses, constant coughing and a fever that goes up and down like a yo-yo.  These things I can normal handle easily, but this week was a long week, compounded by a few extra, new symptoms that let me know that they are really feeling like crap.  Stuff like:

They now scream instead of talking.  To me, to each other, to Willy. Until we ask them to speak normally, and then they mumble incoherently.

They rarely fight with each other, yet this week they have been fighting all the time and picking at each other.

When they are not fighting, they are tattling.

They are clingy as all get out.  Normally sickness makes them subdued, but now they want to attached to me much of the time.

We have gone through six boxes of kleenex in less than a week. I know that they haven’t been wasting it either, as they both yell “boogie” with increasing alarm every time their noses need blowing.  Until I blow their noses. if I ask them to do it, they tell me that they have forgotten how.

I left them alone in the kitchen drawing with markers one morning so that I could take a shower and they didn’t do anything, other than draw on their papers.  Not themselves, each other, the table, the walls, just the paper.  The fact that I left them like this is likely a good indication that I am now also sick.

We had a house guest this week too.  I hope he bring this home to his family, though he was warned and stayed here anyway.

We just returned from a great vacation to the Turks and Caicos.  All four of us had a wonderful time.  Parts of it went really well, exceeding expectation, parts were just as predicted, and parts were downright crazy.  There will be more on the good later, but this post is about our trip home on Monday.

We booked our trip on so that we traveled on Mondays, as that was when the direct flights were offered.  We didn’t take direct flights last year, and quickly saw that as an error in judgement during the sixteen hour travel day that only included a little over three hours of flying time.  The direct flight and on-ground transfers were two of the big reasons that we chose the Beaches in Turks, a short 4 hour flight, followed by a 15 minute drive from the airport!

All was smooth on the way down, so we hoped for the best on the way home.  On departure day, we hopped in the shuttle just as the skies opened in a torrential downpour.  We got to the airport and it was chaos.  There were several flights departing within 30 minutes of each other, and many people were waiting.  The space was small, and there was limited counter space for each airline.  Air Canada had two counters, and it moved very slowly, especially after the agents noticed that they had mistagged all of the luggage that had been received prior to our arrival, and had to re-tag it all while we waited in line, a mere three groups from the front.

Given that our wait at the airport spanned Goose’s naptime, I had promised her she could have a nap in my arms when we got to the airport.  I meant after we had checked in, cleared security, and were sitting at the gate enjoying our last Turk’s Lager of the trip.  She took it to mean that she could sleep the minute we walked through the doors, and demanded to be picked it.  I did and she promptly fell asleep, all thirty-eight pounds of her!

We finally checked in, and wandered down to security, where we stood in a VERY long line that we quickly realized wasn’t moving.  It’s small airport that uses stairs for deplaning.  That rain I mentioned?  Apparently made the stairs too slippery for the people arriving and it slowed the boarding of of those ahead of us, so they stopped processing people.  While I was still carrying sleeping Goose.

We made it through in time for Goose to wake and to get called to board.  The plane took off on schedule, and we settled in for the flight.  About forty minutes into the flight they started meal service, Willy headed to the potty with Goose, and I chilled with Woo.  Shortly into the meal service an announcement came over the speakers letting us know that they were unable to serve hot meals as the ovens were broken.  Then I started hearing the attendants tell passengers that they were out of all the food, offering one of two lonely vegetarian sandwiches, some chips or some oatmeal. By the time they got to us, I snagged the last two sandwiches, leaving the rest of the plane with nothing to eat.  There were a good fourteen rows of hungry people behind us.

Willy and Goose had returned to our seats at this point, in time for another announcement, letting us know that the lavatories hadn’t been emptied, and we needed to land to empty them.  At this point they locked the doors on the washrooms, stopped “food” and beverage service, and started a fast decent into the Bahamas.

We landed in Nassau, and were on the ground for about 40 minutes. The crew was very forthcoming, letting us know where we were going, how we long we could anticipate being delayed, and what they were doing about connecting flights.   They truly tried to make the best of a bad situation, one that was clearly stressful for them too.

It got me wondering about how this could happen? And what else are they missing? It was a  regularly scheduled plane full of small children, flying over the dinner hour.  Did the delays, extra fuel and any other fees they incurred by an unscheduled landing not cost them a pile of money? Passengers and staff alike were inconvenienced and upset by the delays and lack of preparedness, and the disruption to their travel day.  They had many hungry passengers, who were given little choice for food at the airport, and would rely on getting something on the plane.  There must have also been disruption for the passengers on the flight that was held for connecting passengers on my flight.

I understand that delays are a fact of life when travelling, but this one seems to have been entirely avoidable.   A simple checklist that included the item “plane serviced and refreshed” would have saved us all the bother.  I had plane snacks on my list, so we (and the people I shared with in front of us) were actually OK foodwise.  good thing I’m a list-maker!

While away on vacation last week we had to spend the afternoons parenting apart – one of us sitting in the room while Goose “slept”, and the other off playing with Woo in the water park or pool, or both!

More often than not, I self elected to monitor goose, as it let me do some chores like downloading pictures and, well, napping. Sadly Goose got herself in a vicious cycle where she was either really overtired and face planted immediately upon being put in the crib, or she was super keyed up and fought her nap with all she had. She knows that I am in the room with her, but tends to forget and babble to herself. This is but a sampling of what she had to say on one of these days…

You’re my cuddle buddy

Baby, do you wanna cuddle and sleep?  I will tuck you in.

Baby, we have to sleep now. Stop talking.

Cuddle me or you will have to go outside.

You’re stinky.

Lie down. Now put your bum down and go to sleep.

“oh no!” “what?” you’re wet.” “it’s ok, I’m getting dried off.” in different voices, I’m not sure which was Goose and which was Baby. Neither was wet.

Shhh. No talking.

(after baby was bashed against the side of the crib a few times) You will have a time out because you hit me. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-9-10. Ok, you’re done. Cut it out.

Bounce bounce bounce. You’re a horse – I enjoy riding you. (I assume this was to Baby)

When is Judy coming to clean this room? (Judy is our cleaning lady at home.  She did not come on the trip with us.)

Can I have a piña colada?

I see you mommy – there you are. Hi.

Love shack, love shack B-AAA-BY

Mommy said blah blah blah

Why is it nap time?  I wanna play

Hahaha I toooooooted

Yohn Yacob Yingleheimer Yidt… (she sang the whole song, each word starting with a Y)

Ready?  Baboink!  Ready, set?  Roar!! (I wish I knew what she was up to here)

I sleep all the time, so not today.

Look! A parasailer!! A parasailer!!  It’s gone.  It was baby’s parasailer and now it’s gone. Oh, I maybe see it!  Yup. But it’s gone again. It fell.  (She did see a parasailer, but it didn’t fall, it just moved from her view.)

It’s a good thing she does not know just how much she was making me giggle. She eventually fell asleep, shortly after I gave up on the hiding, moved to the bed, and napped.

We took the lils to a Kids in the Capital get together at Starr gymnastics this weekend. We were sure that it would be a winner, as they go to classes at the Starr near our house on a weekly basis. We got there and they were both quite excited. It was a surprise for them, and it went over very well.

As the play part of the gathering started, they were split into separate groups based on age, much like they are at our Starr. Goose went off with Willy, Woo stayed with the older kids and I started to walk around and take pictures. When I got closer to Woo’s group, I noticed that he was looking upset. He was still trying to go through the routines, but was clearly unhappy. Then he saw me, and broke into tears.

I was sitting on the ground at this point, and opened my arms for him to run into. He cried for a minute, and settled into me. I was confused and asked what was wrong. I never imagined that he would be upset here. “It’s too loud here,” he explained, “the teachers keep yelling and it scares me”. My heart burst.

He’s our little boy, but has always been so big. I forget sometimes that he gets scared and needs his mommy. He was so vulnerable in that moment, something I rarely see from my lil boy. The instructors weren’t doing anything that I would have thought was threatening; they were just competing with the noise in the space, and making themselves heard. It was happy and exuberant, just too much for Woo.

He spent the rest of the party hanging out in Goose’s group, or following me around as I talked to friends and took a few more pictures. He did have a great time and even ventured back with the big kids group a couple of times. He returned to me every time the instructors talked though.

We ended the day with some snacks and time to talk to new friends. He really did enjoy himself, as was evidenced by his happy mood and singing as we were packing up. Ironically, he was singing at the top of his voice. It was very loud!!

Here he is, clearly having some fun:

On Sunday night I did something that I never thought I would do. I finished the six-week one hundred push-up program. Even though didn’t do 100 consecutive push-ups, I am pretty pleased with what I did accomplish over the last six seven and a half weeks. My last work out of the program consisted of 252 push-ups over nine sets, including one that was 60 consecutive push-ups! I’m damn proud of that 🙂

The website itself doesn’t expect that every person will be able to do 100 push-ups in one set, and I didn’t think that I would even come close to doing 100 in any number of sets. Looking at the program, I thought that week three was going to kill me, and that would be the end of the push-ups for me forever. I never actually expected to enjoy this process. I never thought that I would be selling it to people as I have been.

So now, I have to figure out a way to keep it up. I am pretty pleased with the muscles that I have gained, I officially have pipes! My arms don’t jiggle at all any more, and my abs are actually starting to have some definition again. My current plan is to keep up the three a week workouts, and aim to do five sets of twenty-five on those days. My only lament is that I didn’t work up the courage to try this sooner!

I went out for drinks this week with some friends. We had a lovely time, chatting and laughing, enjoying each other’s company. It was a much-needed break for me after a hard day and I left feeling very refreshed. As I left though, I had a fleeting thought that my parents would not have approved of this!

It’s not the fun that they would object too, although there was many a day when I was certain that my mom’s main role in life was to ensure that I didn’t have fun. It was the fact that I had met four of these people online. Two of them I had never met before that night. The girlfriend that I went with? She had never met any of them.

Prior to last summer, I would have never guessed that I would have done this. That was before I really started using twitter, started reading so many local blogs, and writing this blog. Through these experiences, I got to know most of the people who I have met, and felt completely comfortable in going. I now have another thought, one that I am not sure how to reconcile. How am I going to explain this to my children when the time comes?  “It’s OK for Mommy, but not for you?”  Thankfully I have time to think it through.

I cook a lot with my lil peeps, and today I have a post up at Kids in the Capital with one of our favourite easy pasta recipes.