Sorry about all the brackets

Oh my, life is busy lately.  Not just full, busy.  Since Sarah's birth (almost 6 months ago) my back has been sending me pink slips in the form of intense pain around the clock.  I kept thinking, "I'll do something about this pain; it hasn't been that long etc. etc."  and then I suddenly realised that I had been saying that for months, not weeks.  So, in the spirit of self-care (catch phrase) and the desire to stand at mass rather than pretend that I am nursing to cover the fact that I need to sit, I decided to contact a chiropractor in Pembroke (an hour away) to deal with my foot injury.

Didn't I say back pain?  Yes, but my foot (in the form of plantar fascitis) still hasn't healed since Isaac's birth.  As a former doctor of mine once said:  "Boy!  You really know how to get on top of things fast."  So, I made the call and showed up for a foot assessment two weeks ago.  The chiropractor quickly determined that my back, namely my poor unstable pelvis, needed to be treated before the foot could even be approached.  (An unapproachable foot, who knew?)

The reason I went with this chiropractor rather than our local one is that the Pembroke doctor has a reputation for 'fixing' things and he has Low Intensity Laser Therapy.  I'm not explaining it, you can look it up if you want.  So,  I arrived for my assessment and ended up with an appointment card that has more ink on it than time slots.  Ouch.  I just finished my first week of driving to Pembroke three times/week; I have to do this for the next 2-3 weeks until the laser sessions are done.  This means that three times a week Dave rushes home from school, I pack Sarah and an obliging sibling in the van, leave some sort of workable supper and drive the hour to Pembroke where I sit for 21 minutes while Sarah gurgles on the examination table and Jacob discusses the merits of laser therapies with the tech.  I then drive the hour back trying not to think about supper and telling Hannah to keep all snacks well away from me.  Inevitably, I take a wrong turn leaving Pembroke as my spatial sense is dismal in the daytime and abysmal at night.  The twins laugh and say, "I'm getting scared," as signs for Petawawa not Barry's Bay begin to appear.  The road also gets darker and darker and Sarah screams louder and louder expressing her mother's feelings exactly.  In fact, my spatial sense is so bad that I repeatedly turn the wrong way out of the exam room at the chiropractor's and end up in hallways marked private.  I need Jacob just to get out of the chiropractic building.

So, a whole lot of gas (and insurance remitting later) my back is already feeling better.  This is in part due to the sacro-iliac belt with which I have been fitted.  You can look that one up, too.  The belt does its job; unfortunately part of its job is to push all of the previously hidden hip fat up, up, up and over the top of the belt into a region that just doesn't wear it that well.  My wardrobe needs to be readjusted; either that or I should stop eating.

There you go:  I am biting the bullet and getting myself all fixed up.  Thankfully, the weather has been more than cooperative:  where is the snow, exactly? and the temps have been sitting at around 15 degrees.  I have played the alphabet and number game with the twins on the drive so many times that the three of us know exactly where three q's and two z's can be found.  Sarah has been remarkably obliging about the entire venture and only cries for the first 45 minutes of the trip back.  Unlike her mother, she has a keen sense of geography and always ceases her pleading once we hit Round Lake.

And there you have the story of our recent daily life in a slightly larger than normal nutshell.

On a slightly less mundane note:  I am trying to remember that Advent is approaching, not just Christmas.  Where are those candles?  Do we have candles?  Joseph's fifth birthday is next Wednesday and I am soon to turn 35.  Wasn't I just 17?

Hannah took first prize in the Legion's Remembrance Day poster contest and Jacob took third in the poetry division.  (Does it mean anything that one of the judges happens to live in close proximity to our house and regularly offers me drives when I'm out exercising?)  Their wins mean that we get to attend "a wee party"  (those are the exact words from the official letter) precisely 10 minutes after I arrive home from laser therapy.  The timing of the event, quickly attended by my motherly whining (How am I going to manage this with a nursing baby?), were quickly quelled when I read the quote at the bottom of the Legion's letterhead:

They served til death.  Why not we?

Touche.

My very first knitting post

My mother has been after me for a while to add some creativity to my life.  Over the years she has sent me cross stitch packages, a lap quilt kit, embroidery books and the list goes on.  I have had very noble plans for all of these motherly gifts.  My mother, after all, is a power house of creativity.  She has a certificate in haute couture from the Richard Robinson Fashion Academy and spent much of my childhood sewing us clothes as well as operating a dressmaking business out of our teensy tiny living room.  I remember many days and nights watching my mom sewing candy-floss pink bridesmaid dresses and dying lace in old tea to try to match the off-white wedding gown that she was sewing for a customer.  Our Christmas tree was, and is, covered in beautiful homemade ornaments and our stockings were never just socks.  I remember craft sales hosted in our living room when we lived in Ottawa; tables laden with crocheted shawls and velveteen hearts to be hung on the tree.

I don't know if she has any idea how much I have admired and appreciated her creativity and, what I consider, amazing abilities.  I have often wondered why I don't just do the same.  Similarly, I have  thought that I could, simply by virtue of being her daughter.  Part of it, I think, is that she sews so well that I never felt that I could start as my attempts would fall miserably flat in comparison to hers.  

However, with the birth of Sarah, my mom began to encourage me to knit.  She had recently rediscovered the needles and yarn and had brought two beautiful blankets for Sarah when she arrived from Halifax in June.  My maternal grandmother was also a prolific knitter.  By prolific I mean that the needles were never far from her reach and she could knit almost anything that she put her mind to.  In fact, her hands (as far as I remember) only held two things:  knitting needles and cigarettes.  We benefitted far more from the former.  Most of the Lynch grandchildren have "Gran" afghans as testimony to her abilities.  My Aunt Sandy jokes that Lynches are conceived and die under afghans.  Gran knit, a lot.   

Perhaps it was inevitable:  knitting is written into my soul;)  (Only to be discovered in my mid-thirties with a house full of children and a need to make something a little more lasting than a bed.)  So, the other day, when I lamented to Dave that I needed to create something other than supper, I finally took my mother up on her knitting suggestion.  I began to knit and, unlike any other endeavour before, I am hooked.  Here are my second and third projects.  Look forward to more.  (Pardon my wistful look:  the wind was blowing and I was trying to keep the ever-present children out of the shot.)

Post Hallowe'en blues

Pictures of mummies, french mimes and ninjas are forthcoming; however, most efforts at, well, anything around these parts have been thwarted by a terrific case of strep throat in the boy about whom I only just boasted to his father had never required antibiotics.  Until Tuesday.  Coupled with my mention of Sarah's sleeping abilities, I am quickly learning that pride comes before a fall, even when it comes to bacterial infections.  

Poor little Joseph.  He hasn't been to school since I don't know when as what started as a stomach flu and cold eventually showed its true colours as the horrible menace that it really is, strep throat.  He arrived home from school some time before Hallowe'en literally collapsing on the step with an, "I need a really big break."  He got what he asked for.

I spent Tuesday in the ER with Joseph and Sarah in toe as our family doctor had no appointments.  Thankfully, Dave was home sick with a head cold (and report cards) and, thus, I could leave Isaac at home with him.  It is times like these that I am so grateful for our small town hospital where, much like Cheers, everybody knows your name.  Neighbours who work at the hospital take one look at the suffering child and produce racing cars, four pencils with basketballs and footballs as erasers and, without asking, purchase water and juice for us at the cafeteria.  There really are good people out there.

We eventually made it home from the ER with a prescription and a boy who couldn't move his neck due to the swelling of his lymph nodes.  In his words:  "My neck is in infinity pain."  We can thank Jacob for his introduction of higher mathematics to his younger brother.  Joe's stiff neck had me terribly worried about meningitis and phone calls were exchanged between mother, daughters and sisters.  Their words reassured me.

By night time Joseph was asleep on the couch and Isaac was screaming in his sleep from the confines of his crib.  I took one look at Dave who said, "I'll go.  I'll bring my report cards with me."  So, off Isaac and Dave went to the ER where they were treated by the same doctor who treated Joseph.  (What kind of hours does this poor guy work?)  

Isaac seems to be on the mend and Joseph revives between doses of Tylenol and Motrin.  I count it as progress when a fight breaks out between brothers.  Jacob thinks that Joseph's crooked, stiff neck is "really cool" and encourages us to look on the bright side, "If he's still like this next year, he can go as the Hunchback of Notredame for Hallowe'en."  Silver linings all around.