Today is Joe's birthday; a moment of honesty

It's true, today is Joe's birthday.  He is six.  Birthdays around here are primarily celebrated with liberal  doses of food along with a conservative dash of disapppintment.  The disappointment arises from an inevitable realization that the piles of presents, the birthday piñata and a never-ending day have failed to materialize.

The failure of the birthday plans is usually my fault and I try to cover my tracks by promising more presents by nightfall.  Plan B ultimately fails as the vehicle is gone for the day and Amazon doesn't do same-day delivery.  So, I move to Plan C - the grandma trick - find a ten dollar bill, a birthday card and a big, "Surprise!  here is your final present."  Sometimes this works.  Hopefully tonight is one of those times.

I did make a cake this year:  a Betty Crocker gluten-free chocolate cake with butter-cream icing.  The only glitch is that I was craving fruity butter-cream icing.  Searching how to do this on the internet led me to adding raspberry jam.  It worked and it tastes good.  The one oversight is that it is pink.  So, for my son's sixth birthday I have managed to bake a very large pink cake.

An inclusive cake.

How I manage to get swept up in the current while swimming decidedly upstream is beyond me.


All in all, today has gone well.  Our fourth child, our third son, our Joseph Michael is six.  He is the child who burst into our family with a cry, a hug and a ray of sunshine.  He pushed us into the "you really are Catholic camp" and caused me to radically trust God in a way that I had never before.
Coming only 19 months after Benjamin, he was the most surprising of our children.

His positive pregnancy test felt like I had handed God my plans only to watch Him tear them to pieces and throw them to the wind.  What I didn't know was that in trusting God I found that He is trustworthy.

In fact, six years ago, after a day of on-and-off labour, I sat down on the couch at 6:30pm to watch "Who Wants to be a Millionaire", a show that I had never watched before and never have since.  Five minutes into the show, my water broke with a tremendous gush, labour began with a frenzy and Dave, just back from a run, asked if he just might be able to shower.  Considering we had only a five minute  trip to the hospital, I conceded.  Joe was born 1 hour and 23 minutes later.

His first act upon entering this world was to throw his arms around my neck in an embrace.  (He can
still reduce his mother to tears as I write this.)  What the next six years taught me was that my original plans were worth very little in the grand scheme of things.  My idea of our family amounted to a few dollar bills; God's idea was Joseph, worth more than millions and millions of dollars.  I don't think that it was any coincidence that his arrival was heralded by that particular game show.  His name means God adds to the family.  Indeed, He does.

Sometime the relatives need photos

 Our two blondies.  Isaac's hair colour matches Sammy's fur exactly:  strange determination of genetic code.

 Rebecca, just in case you don't recognise me when I arrive in Texas - I have curly/wavy hair, at times. At times is determined by the use of hair product.  I hate hair products, but I now concede that the right product really does work now that my hair is a frizzy mess after the hair-altering hormones of five pregnancies.

 Happy brothers.  Ben is now missing both front teeth.  As a friend of mine remarked at mass, "Must be time for First Communion; he can no longer bite the priest."  Strange but true, Ben is due up for his next round of sacraments come the spring.

 Happy siblings.

 WHWS:  What Hannah Wore on Sunday.  Who is growing up on me?  A friend of mine bought this hat for herself but it proved too small so she passed it on to Hannah.  My mom bought Hannah this dress a few Christmases ago and the boots were 12 bucks at Value Village despite being leather and made in Romania (which just seems better than being made somewhere on the Pacific Rim).  Yes, Dad, they are vampire boots.

 WSWS:  Sarah wearing her first skirt that Hannah wore when she was three!  Someone is on a slightly different growth curve than her sister.  Once we got to mass I noticed that Sarah had poured her entire breakfast smoothie down her left side, lovely sprays of wet dairy products.

 No, not 2 years old, only almost 18 months.

WIWS:  didn't you know about my permanently turned in knee?  What a pose, a pose that says, "I am trying to look smaller than I really am."  Time for photoshop.  The shirt is from a store in Lunenburg, NS and it has the most awkward drape which probably accounts for its sale tag.  The pants are from the GAP and really belong in the summer.  The boots are Eddie Bauer and improve any outfit.  The cowl is one that I made last year which makes it sound like I have knit dozens; rather, it is one of two that I have ever knit in my entire life, lest you think that I make anything other than supper and babies.  Happy Feast of Christ the King.

What a week

My last post featured a happy family digging holes on a sunny Saturday in November.  (Don't worry, we aren't throwing up.)  By that night, I found myself waiting with Ben at the ER for stitches on the corner of his eye, the classic boy injury.  Joseph had slashed him with a mini-stick in a friendly game of backyard hockey.  They had attempted a coverup and Ben had arrived at supper wearing a sweatshirt with his hood up and drawn around his face.  His father demanded that the hood come down and then Dave's eyes grew large as he asked, "Why is your head bleeding?"  The story eventually came out and my plans for Saturday night became clear:  a long wait and some quality time with Ben.

Truthfully, these sorts of things don't bother me in the slightest.  I actually welcome such aberrations from our normal routine, they provide a good shake-up for someone who suffers from control issues.  So, we ate at a leisurely pace and then headed over to our small hospital.  It was a busy night there and we had a 1.5 hour wait (for which the staff apologized profusely).  However, the school's custodian came in with bronchitis and I had someone with which to chat, even if she was wearing a mask.

When we were called in,the doctor arrived and I noticed that he had a small scar exactly where Ben would soon have one.  He looked at Ben and laughed pointing to his own head, "I had a stomach bug last week and passed out in the bathroom and hit my head.  I had to come to the ER too and have a doctor patch me up, buddy."  This calmed Ben a bit (a calm Ben is able to speak rather than stare stonily at the wall and pretend he is not present; a calm Ben can communicate with hospital staff rather than appear slightly autistic).  The doctor chose to glue Ben's wound and we were soon on our way back home.

As we drove home, I smiled as I recalled my clear prayer earlier this year that ER visits would only be for broken bones and stitches until I had recovered from the pneumonia trauma of the spring.  Thank you, lord.

So, we headed into the week strong and glued together.  Then Tuesday hit me.

Several months ago I had, in a fit of efficiency, booked all six children for booster shots at our family doctor's as well as two children at the dentist.  Foolishly, I had thought that Dave might just be able to come.  No such luck.  Still, I wasn't dismayed and I packed the van, the diaper bag and the kids and started the hour long trek to Renfrew.

Our dentist's office was remodelled a few years ago and, strangely enough, it is quite a pleasant place to be.  The walls are multicoloured and covered in original works of art; the staff are genuinely pleasant and happy to deal with the public; and it has one of the nicest and most spacious bathrooms in the county.  Plus, there is a wonderful corner set aside with toys, a small desk and several chairs for the kids to play.  Also, each time that I arrive, one of the hygienists has a bag of hand-me-down clothes ready and waiting for the boys.  These people know how to keep our business.

The dental appointments were fine.  And I didn't even get a parking ticket, unlike last time.

Then we headed over to our family doctor's for an 11am appointment.  This was where my foresight proved in need of glasses.  I hadn't factored in the proximity to lunch, Joseph's failure to eat more than a half a piece of bread for breakfast, and the wisest order in which to vaccinate the children and thus lessen the trauma.

Thankfully, the office was empty.

Joe volunteered to go first.  At this point I was still unaware that his blood sugar was rapidly plummeting toward zero and that a relatively calm Joe would soon become a raging bull caught in a trap.  My doctor was also unaware.  Dr.  Mac casually began looking through charts and loading up needles - all while various children wandered in and out of the room taking in the needles, the vials and the dawning reality.  By the time that Dr. Mac was ready with injection in hand, Joe was nowhere to be found.  I sent a brother out to the waiting room to look and then I  noticed a crouching boy tucked between the wall and the examination table.  Enter raging bull.  I will spare you the details.  Except that I was unable to keep Isaac from watching as sibling after sibling got the jab.  If you are even remotely acquainted with our children's personalities, you can easily guess how each took the shot.  Some were more stoic than others.  In fact, Sarah, the most laid back of the bunch, received an injection in both legs; she opened her mouth to protest but seemed to realise that the damage was done and that there really was no point in wasting energy in crying.


And then we got to Isaac.  Somehow I wrestled him onto the table and held him down long enough to receive a stab in the buttocks.  However, he insisted on filing an immediate complaint with our doctor and jumped off the table, stared her square in the face and began to scream at the top of his lungs.  Thank God this woman has four children of her own.  It was at this point that Sarah wandered back in.  Her sense of justice, previously latent, decided to make its first and grandest entrance.  She entered the room and immediately perceived her elder brother's difficulties.  She decided to unleash a similar storm of fury upon our poor practitioner, equalled only by that of Isaac who was still registering his displeasure.  There really was nothing that I could do as these two three-foot tyrants rained down hell upon Dr. Mac and her medical staff.  I shrugged my shoulders and smiled with one of those I-am-useless sort of smiles.  The sort of smile that says, "Oops, here we are in the middle of a downpour with no jackets, umbrellas or shelter.  We might as well wait it out and remain calm."  Eventually the storm stopped, the older siblings popped in to say thank you (well, not Joe) and my doctor washed her hands (of us), smiled and looking pointedly at the kids, said, "Your mother and I are going for a drink.   Not at Tim Hortons."

Did you think that was the end?

Gotcha.  The next day I had yet more appointments to pick up my orthotics.  On the way to our local hospital I stopped at the grocery store for milk.  The cashier, noticing the look upon my face, said, "You look like you are at the end of your rope."  I tried to explain that I had had dental and medical appointments with all the kids and no husband yesterday.  However, in my haste, I jumbled my words and told her that I had had mental appointments with all of the kids and no husband yesterday.  Apparently, mental is the logical amalgam of dental and medical.  Starting more rumours.

And that's not where it stops.

 Still with me?

I had noticed that both Joe's and Ben's injection sites were a little swollen and red.  I chalked this up to a normal reaction and made a mental note to check later.  Later came and Ben's had grown a little while Joe's arm was now swollen from shoulder to elbow - hot, red and hard.  I phoned the doctor and learned that it was most likely infected.  Thus, I found myself on the road during nap time once again making the trek to our doctor's office.  (Please, no advice about changing doctors.)  I asked Ben if he would drive so that I could rest, but he looked at me in confusion and wariness.

Anyway, we made it.  Since no year is complete without a round of antibiotics, Joe is now on a five-day course.   (Please, don't tell the anti-vaccination people about this incident.)  The silver lining in this whole thing is that a very good friend was visiting in the morning and was able to stay for the afternoon and watch a sleeping Sarah so that I didn't have to drag the baby along as well.  Thank you, Anne-Marie.

Also, I found the remains of a gift certificate that I had won six years ago in Renfrew to a jewellery shop.  It was for $42.27 and I really doubted that they would honour it.  However, after
the turmoil of vaccination-2013,  I told the boys that I was stopping at a store that they would not be entering.  Raging bulls do not do well in china shops.  So, I went in and presented the receipt.
Perhaps the look of weariness softened the clerk's heart.  She chirped, "Of course!" and I bought myself a beautiful pair of sterling silver hoops.  A genuine silver lining.

Never again.

A surprisingly warm day in November

 I might as well call this post exactly what it is, a surprisingly warm day in November.  After all, soon it will be the bleak mid-winter.  It was a day to send the kids outside and lock the doors so that they could be bored long enough to remember what they did outside in the summer.

 In this case, Dave got out the shovels and attacked a project that has needed 'dealing with' for a very long time.  The basement window under the kitchen window has had a mysterious leak since we moved into this house.  Mysterious because it only leaks on the deepest of coldest days in January and February.  Not during spring floods or warmer, milder, thawing-er sorts of days.  Mystery?  You agree, don't you?  Are any of you experts in masonry?  If so, such skills would come in very, very handy.  Afelskies are good at digging holes and, I guess, re-filling them, but masonry is outside of the Afelskie job-skill set.

 See Dave's body language?  It says, "I am confused.  I will continue to dig.  I will send my eldest into the trenches."  They are operating at an impressive rate and Australia soon might be reached; the foundation, however, will still be leaking.

 When I first came out, answering the cries of, "Mom!  Mom!  There's a hole and it's up to Jacob's shoulders!", I thought that Dave was digging a waste-treatment system for the dog (euphemism...).  However, I quickly discovered that he was on the wrong side of the house and nowhere near where such a treatment centre should be placed.

 My next thought was, "Where is Joe?"  and then I looked at the ever-growing pile of dirt and briefly wondered if anyone, in fact, knew of Joe's whereabouts.  Thankfully, his voice rang out from the other end of the yard and my fears were instantly laid to rest.  Note Ben's two front teeth are now missing.  Dave calls him Chris Neil; I call him Dougie Gilmour.  Dave is far more with it than I when it comes to hockey.

Proof that the bookworm can do far more than devour fiction.  Our town is filled with intellectuals able to dig graves.  (Terrible inside joke.)  So, we will enjoy the day, the last whiffs of fall and time together as a family.  It's all so precious, and so very, very fleeting.

11/12/13 or I really enjoy these children

Did you know that 11/12/13 is today's date?  One of Dave's students told him this today.  When Jacob heard the date he sang the music to the Twilight Zone.  Not that he knows from where that theme song comes, let alone has he watched an episode.  He's just getting older, and along with getting older comes a whole lot of fun that I didn't necessarily expect.

I love babies and toddlers;  pre-schoolers are darling; and the love of an almost-six-year-old boy and his  seven-and-a-half year old brother can't be beat.  But the twins are at that age that teachers in school dread:  the girls begin to be catty and the boys start to turn sullen, distracted and smelly.  Granted those are stereotypes, but you know what I mean.  When I supply taught I dreaded the days in which I was in classrooms above grade four.  Suddenly the kids were mean; the ones who weren't stared at you silently pleading that you would be able to control the classroom and the day wouldn't be a reign of terror.  So, it is a pleasant surprise how much I enjoy my own children at this age.

Anyone who knows Hannah can attest to her lack of cattiness.  She has a fine sense of humour, a great feel for the absurd and a compassionate heart that looks out for the little guy.  And, jumping Jehoshaphat, can she wrangle babies.  Jacob's turn of phrase leaves me in stitches; especially the way his reading has out-paced his familiarity with the spoken word.    St. Theresa is pronounced like the-resa, the i is long in famine, and my gluten intolerance makes me guilty of serious sin in his books (glutton).

These are just tiny glimpses of their delightful personalities.  Trust me, there are difficulties, but they really and truly are nice kids and a joy to be around.  Tonight they were working on their entries for the Remembrance Day contest at the local legion.  Hannah was designing a poem and Jacob was desperately trying to find words that rhyme with trench.  We quickly discovered that wench just doesn't provide the right tone for a poem about the world wars.  In his haste to rhyme he had written several stanzas that made little sense and had me in stitches.  For example:

Now there is nothing like that in war,

They now probably use benches.  

But other than the poppies, shadows and graves,

We must remember the soldiers and the trenches.

I mean, what?  Benches?  What do they use the benches for?  To hit the enemy?  Or to sit on and observe the war?  I asked Jacob about his choice of words and he shrugged and said, "Well, it had to rhyme with trenches."  Yes, son, but it still needs to make sense.  So, we spent the next 45 minutes with the supper dishes pushed aside and Mommy making gentle suggestions (ahem, re-writing) the poem.  The poem is still his:  some of it fails to scan properly and the soldiers still resemble zombies.  I left Hannah with a suggested theme and refused to put pencil to poster paper.

On the other end of the family, Isaac and Sarah are just fun to be with.  They are my two little shadows.  Sarah has discerned my twin passions, clothing and cleaning, and follows me with either a pair of shoes or a broom saying, "Mom, Mom, Mom," until I take the broom and begin to sweep (at which point she also hands me a mop) or I put on the shoes (which she follows up with a brush and hair elastic).  Also, and this is a big and momentous also, Isaac finally loves to be read to.  Up until a few months ago, each time that I attempted to read him a book, he would take it from me, turn it upside down and say, "I read."  And that was that.  Now he will sit for an hour and listen with his head propped on my shoulder.  Sarah is content to hold her own book rather than grab the one from my hands (ah, small blessings).  At bedtime tonight Isaac asked for a second book so I found one on my dresser that Joe had received along with a Happy Meal from MacDonald's.  It was about a pet goat who ate everything - there is even a bite taken out of the actual book.  The goat eats his owner's house, the town and eventually parts of France.  He eats so much that is inedible that he ends up in bed with a sore stomach. At this point the child's father enters the book in order to deliver a stunning lecture:

No more furniture for you.

Lean protein;

Whole Grains;

Fruits and Veggies;

And low-fat dairy for you.

MacDonald's, hello?!  I felt like I was listening to Hugh Heffner talk about the importance of the written word.  So, we will leave that book for now and stick to The Biggest Bear and Billy and Blaze.  At least they eat bacon and butter.

What Sr. Theresa wants, Sr. Theresa gets.

So, I was at the baptism of a lovely little lady today and two religious sisters came over to talk with me.  (This sounds like the beginning of a joke.)  Upon asking my name, one of the sisters' faces lit up and she said, "Oh, you're Elena Afelskie.  I was at a vocations breakfast in Ottawa and Sr. Theresa told me that if I met you, I was to tell you that she needs more posts."  And what Sr. Theresa wants, Sr. Theresa gets:  more posts from the lazy blogger.

We were at the dentist this week.  Hannah and I each needed to get a cavity filled.  Isaac insisted on watching the entire process which just might provide him with the impetus he needs to brush his teeth and avoid the drill.  My mouth was frozen in such a manner that the roof of my mouth and the top of my throat were without sensation.  I mentioned this to the secretary and remarked that it felt oddly like what I would expect of an anaphylactic reaction. She smiled and said, "Just let me know if it gets any worse."  Comforting.

Afterward we went to Wendy's for lunch.  The kids always, always, always get chicken fingers and fries ... and a toy.  But, I hate the toy.  The toys inevitably come in packaging with instructions and little parts that get strewn around the van and found months later in the purge of the basement.  Thus, I instructed the server that there would be no toys this time.  There is a substitution, though.  If your kid meal doesn't come with a toy, you can get a kid-sized Frostie instead.  It was difficult to convince Isaac that the Frostie comes after the meal.

Rebecca, look, I gots the sun damage too.  And Sarah gots the Frostie.

Oh, so blurry.  But, so cute.

I've been waiting a while for a girl...

Check out the skirt - tutu attached to leggings.  And the shoes, complete with tiny heels.  By the end of mass, she was also wearing my necklace, two bracelets, demanding the scarf and just starting to notice the earrings.

"Hello, world!  Here I come."

And my daddy loves me.

And what is she looking at?  Her brothers playing outside before mass.  In the snow.  Let's not do this again soon.

Colin, you asked about the awkward blogger's pose?  You got it.  I imagine that you have not run across it before as you probably don't frequent What I Wore on Sunday or fashion blogs.  At least I hope not.

Suspicious blogger's pose.  Don't worry, I wore a colourful scarf.  I was, after all, attending a baptism and felt the need not to arrive dressed as original sin.

The Hallowe'en Post, a bit heavy on the Sarah

 Do I need to apologise for so many pictures of Sarah?  Probably only to her siblings.  I am snapping so many photos of her because her first few years are moving so fast and I have a fear that we will look back for photos of her at two years old and find only one or two while her siblings had several.   But, really, how many photos do our parents have of us at two?  One, maybe two or three.  The digital age has changed everything, including the fact that we never develop any of these snapshots.  So, on with things.  Hallowe'en.

Jacob came home from school at lunch on Hallowe'en with a bad headache and a sore throat.  He fell asleep on the couch and spent the rest of Thursday and most of Friday parked under his duvet.  When he initially fell asleep, he told me that he was going to build his strength in order to valiantly trick'or'treat later that night.  Not so.  He threw up once and was unable to move from his nest.  Luckily, he never emptied his stomach again and slept his way to health.  No one else seems to be affected.
The picture?  Isaac's version of nursing his brother back to health.  Isaac was so excited to have just one older sibling at home that he couldn't stay away from Jacob.  When I told him that Jacob needed to sleep, Isaac replied, "I help," and placed a pillow over his brother's face and pressed down hard.  I said, "While suffocation might induce unconsciousness, that is a slumber from which your brother will never return," and showed him how to place the pillow under the patient's head.  Life lessons.

 Sarah on her way back from helping Isaac nurse Jacob.  She believes that the iPad (the camera) is her's; thus, the hand beginning to reach up to claim possession.

 More on the healthcare front.  You thought that euthanasia was only for Quebec...

 The kids in their regalia.  While the night was not cold, it was pouring out and the numbers were down a bit.  We usually get around 130 kids at the door and there is no leaving the front entrance.  This year, the early evening moved very slowly so I began to give out three treats to each child who knocked at the door so that we wouldn't be laden with chips and candy at the end of the night.  Apparently, one of Hannah's classmates said to her the next day, "Wow! Your mom is super nice.  She gave me three bags of chips!"  This is how reputations are built, my friends.  However, the numbers began to pick up and we had to rifle through our childrens' loot in order to feed the town.  Corporal work of mercy.  (No, our dining room wall is not neon green, more of a ripe avocado.)

 Sarah discovered the joys of Hallowe'en this year.  She was allowed to sit at the front door with an open bag of chips and access to much, much more.

 However, her greatest delight was greeting all who came to her door.  I had no idea how much both she and Isaac love people.  They insisted on answering the door and handing out the candy, all while showing no fear.  Isaac so enjoyed this task that he turned to me at one point with a look of absolute delight and proclaimed, "I LOVE the peoples."  Later that night as I lay beside him trying to get him to sleep, he heard someone at the door, sat bolt upright and yelled, "The peoples!  The peoples!  I need to feed the peoples!"  Extrovert?

 And look:  I decorated!  Joseph won this webby stuff in a classroom draw at the end of the day.  (I imagine that this is how his teacher gets rid of her Hallowe'en decor in a fair and just manner.)  I decided to string it across the front door - it was so easy and spooked things up appropriately.  Sarah was surprised to see her brothers and father at the door and almost didn't let them in.  One look in their loot bags was enough for her to grant admission.  Beware the mono-shod baby, she's a tough one.