I never said I was a good blogger.

I recently got reminded that I have a blog... bahahaha! I'm terrible at remembering to update this type of thing.. it's like having a diary. I find it, write in it for a short time, then forget about/lose it for a while.

So, what's happened in the last... 10 months? Well, a lot.

My girls are now 28 months and 14 months old. They're both very active toddlers, who love to make me nutty. McKenzie's been diagnosed to have a severe speech delay, and Glen's currently taking her to weekly speech therapy sessions... There's a bit of improvement, but not a whole lot. Emily talks almost as much as McKenzie does! Emily's also learning that if she points at exactly what she wants, and signs please, she has a better chance of getting it than McKenzie when she just throws a tantrum. We've been living in a 2bdrm basement apartment for the last 5 months, but last month our landlord told us that he wants his cousin to move in, so we had to leave by april 1st... The apartment my parents were living in was less than ideal, too, so we've decided to move back together again. We've got a house that's only a few blocks away from the last house we were at. Kinda ironic, in a way.

Dad's study was a failure. His spleen grew too much. Now he's on a new study, but it's a double blind, so he doesn't know if he has drug or placebo. We all feel he's got a placebo. He's been discussing with surgeons about having his spleen removed. Fortunately, he's consolidated all his cancer care to the hospital down in the city, so instead of having to come to the hospital in town here twice a week when he needed transfusions, he does ALL his appointments in one day down there. Transfusion and everything.

Dad's also retired. I've basically taken his place in the driving business until I can get an office job. This job is killing us, financially... gas is outrageous. Glen might be taken on full-time at his current position, so hopefully we'll see some better paycheques soon.

Emily's still nursing... she'll probably keep going until she's 2. I'm okay with that.

Aaaaaaaaaand I've been dealing with all kinds of stuff, so I've gone on anti-anxiety meds. They've at least been helping me sleep, which is nice. I probably should have upped my dosage over the last couple weeks, with all that's been going on, but they tend to make me sound dopey, so I'd rather not risk that while driving. I've only been taking one at night, as opposed to the max of 4/day I can take. Unfortunately, a lot of my headaches have returned, too. I used to have never-ending migraines several years ago, and I thought they'd gone away, but not lately.

I'm going to go to bed now... have a good night, interwebz!

Life is a rollercoaster...

So things have been kind of topsy turvy in the last few weeks. Forgive me if I jump all over the place tonight.

The minivan - the letter of employment I was promised fell through. So I tried a bunch of different ways, and didn't get one by the end of last week, so I went and got my deposit back from the dealership. On Tuesday, Glen, the girls and I were at one of our fave restaurants, and the manager there said she'd help me out. So I got the letter late Thursday night, and emailed it direct to the dealership. They sent it to the bank, and I'm still waiting to hear back from them. I'm so nervous because the dealership updated the van listing to "Deal Pending" and haven't gotten back to me, so I don't know if that's MY deal, or if someone else is buying it.... I'm going to cry if we don't get it.

The lease - our landlord's giving us the option of going lease, month to month or no lease at all, and we've been debating it ever since. I don't think we've come to a decision yet.

Glen's been laid off for over a week. It sucks. He needs to find another job. Not just that - my mat leave's been cut off, thanks to the gov't saying I checked off some box I never would have checked. They say they're fixing it, but we'll see in a few weeks. Ugh.

Dad's not been doing too great. Lots of dental surgery's been keeping him pretty low, so the transfusions aren't really doing anything for him.

The last week's been pretty different for us, too... we got called out to do a computer repair job on Monday night. Glen, Emily and I were out at their place from just after 8pm until 7am!! It's times like that that I'm glad Em's breastfed. No worrying about not having bottles on hand or anything. Mom took care of McKenzie for us. Well, Glen didn't finish the job... so we ended up going back Wednesday AND Thursday nights, and were out until around 2am both nights. It's been a very tiring week.. What's worse is that we had McKenzie with us on Thursday night. We made friends with the family whose computer we fixed, so we went back last night for a couple hours just to hang out. They're really nice people, and she has a couple boys, who are 3 and 6. It's nice to have another Mommy friend.

It's been a busy week!

The tranny on one of the cars went on Friday night... soooooooo, instead of spending the money to get it fixed (however much that'd be), I decided the time was right to get a minivan. Kinda been needing one, what with 4 adults and 2 kids in this house! So Monday afternoon was spent at the car dealership, test driving a minivan and trying to figure out how to get financing. The last few days have been a slew of phone calls between the car dealership, the bank, my employment agency... *sigh* I'm hoping that once they get the letter of employment, everything just goes through and I can pick up my van. Glen's started a new placement today, so hopefully this one lasts a while longer.

Ouch, Agony, Pain!

Aside from being one of Dad's favourite sayings (such a lovely sarcastic sense of humour he has), that's exactly what I'm feeling today! I've worked at one of the booths at the BabyTime Show for the last two days, and bending over so much and walking so much is really taking a toll on my body. McKenzie did pretty good yesterday - surprisingly she had a good hour and a half - two hour nap!! Emily did well yesterday, too... she gave me about an hour and a half between each feeding, which was great! Today we left McKenzie at home, as I didn't think it was fair on her to be stuck at the show and trapped in a stroller for the majority of the day, and Emily seemed to want to eat a LOT today! Tomorrow I work the last shift at the booth, and the plan is to take both girls with us. Mom will be coming with me for the full day, unlike the last two days, so we'll be able to tag team with the kids.

I bought a wrap today, which is something I've been thinking about trying with Emily for a while now. Surprisingly she seemed to like it! I'm hoping she continues to enjoy the wrap, because I found it easy to use, and really great to be able to take her out of the wrap, and nurse her without taking it off!

Big day tomorrow, and a busy weekend

So tomorrow is a big day. Dad's got a blood transfusion (his hemoglobin levels on Wednesday were 78!), which he's taking my recently-unemployed brother Charlie to, and Mom and I are going to the BabyTime Show. We're actually going to be working at one of the booths at the show, which is pretty awesome because not only do we get in for free, but we get PAID!! Woohoo! Yeah, it's less than minimum wage, but who cares? It's tax-free!

So, Dad's gonna be spending a good 5 hours at the hospital with Charlie, and I'm going to be spending 8 1/2 hours at a baby show getting free stuff, and hanging out with lil miss McKenzie and wee Emily.

I was surprised to find out that my brother was unemployed... poor guy got cut because his company lost a contract, and they just axed everyone who had less than 2 years employment. Sucks, but that's life. I'm trying to help him out the best I can, by helping him file for unemployment, understand his severence package, reduce his cable bill, and telling him about places he might be able to find employment. I just don't feel like it's enough, and yet I KNOW it's more than a lot of other sisters may do for their brothers...

I have so much I need to do tonight, and it feels like I have no time to do it all. Like buy gas.. it's going up to over $1.31/L tomorrow!

Sometimes Mommy wants a break!

Woke up this morning around 10:30... as per usual, Glen had McKenzie downstairs playing, and fed, and I was sleeping in with Emily, since she likes to feed a lot through the night. Well, I got antsy soon after breakfast, so I packed the girls up in the stroller, and walked to Walmart. Took me around half an hour! Not the closest place to walk to. Mom took the car, and met us there. Emily slept the whole way there, then through lunch, and then for a while after we started wandering around. McKenzie was getting bored of the stroller since before lunch, so I had pulled her out for lunch (which she didn't eat a whole lot of), and she played around in the booth.. then I let her run around walmart for a while.

Well, after a while, Emily woke up, so I figured it'd be a good idea to stop in the family bathroom and nurse her before she got cranky. McKenzie was already pretty darn cranky! She was tired, so she refused to hold my hand, or walk where I wanted her to go... she's a pretty active, independent little girl! So I changed Emily, and nursed her while McKenzie was running around the family bathroom. Mom was in there with us, and watched McKenzie to make sure she didn't hurt herself while I was busy nursing. After I was done that, however, I had to deal with wrestling my not-quite-18 month old into the stroller, and boy was she putting up one heck of a fight! Even bribery wasn't working! Finally got her in, and after about 10 minutes, she finally fell asleep! Thank goodness! Buuuut soon after that, Emily decided to be cranky. So we went for a car ride, which settled both girls for the most part. Until I got to my chiropractor's office... then they both woke up.

After we got home, McKenzie's like a lil wild child, running all over, and trying to climb all over everything... and Emily's at her eat off and on all evening stage. Mommy wants a break! And dinner!

One kid happy, one kid not so much.. *sigh*

Today Mom, McKenzie, Emily and I went to my BFF's baby shower. Her lil girl is not quite a month younger than Emily, but they held the shower late due to weather restrictions. Yay snow and living in the middle of nowhere (them, not me! LOL!). Well, both girls slept all the way up (it's an hour and a half drive), and they were pretty good while we were there.. but McKenzie didn't want to sleep on the way back, and now Emily's all cranky. Time to call it an "early" night (by half an hour.. hehe!) I hope everyone out there had a good Sunday!