Cheeze Whiz and Mustard

Today was the first of many goodbyes.

When we were sent out here two years ago, we were sent with my husband’s best friend and his wife.  Both guys were in university together and part of a scholarship program that involved a contract of employment anywhere in Canada upon graduation. They were fortunate and got sent to the same small city and the same small store to work.

In that time, we all became parents of boys.  Our weekend visits went from relaxing dinners, games and movies to bibs and diapers; we enjoyed everything about it.

Although neither of us really liked living here, having each other made a world of difference on our outlook.  Now the contracts are up and we are all headed back to our respective origins.  They leave tomorrow, we leave next week.

Today was the first of many goodbyes to friends that placed fond memories in my heart in a place I otherwise would have loathed.

I read a book.

An entire book.  With no illustrations or references to a singing backpack, fire trucks, construction equipment or Sir Topham Hat.

The book had over 200 pages and a TON of footnotes.

And I read it in under a week.

As the mother of a 22 month old and 8 week old, I think you should be impressed.

Want to know what I read?  Go here!

I have 6 different sizes of bra in my wardrobe.  I have worn all of them in the past year.

Half of me was an early bloomer.  Relatives used to tease me about having “mosquito bites” in the fifth grade, and I innocently thought they were actually referring to real mosquito bites when they were, in fact, referencing my lopsided chest.  My left side decided to start developing breasts at the tender age of 10 while my right side clung to its girlish body.  I was immensely embarrassed of this.  A friend of my mother’s, who happened to be a physician, came for a visit and my father thought it would be useful to consult this friend about my breasts, questioning whether they would always be that way or would things correct themselves in time, as though having lopsided breasts would become a pandemic to be feared and its victims shunned into asylums.

I remember my mother taking me bra shopping for the first time and buying me not the cute little training bras that all my friends wore, but very womanly underwire B-cup bras while my mom wore an A cup.  I was 11.  And the chest kept growing.

By the time I was 17, I was very comfortably into a D cup, although I often crammed those puppies into a C.  High school girls aren’t supposed to have D cups.  They are supposed have cute perky boobs without their own gravitational pull.  And even though most high school guys have boobs on the brain 24/7, it seemed that a smaller chest was indirectly proportional to how popular a girl was with said boys.  Make sense to you?  I didn’t think so.

Over the course of the next two years, I lost over 40 lbs.  I was not a big girl to begin with, but I felt that I needed to be thinner (that’s a whole other post) and I got down to an A cup.  The cute bras and tiny tops were all mine!  But this was not meant to last, since I was clearly well below my body’s natural weight, and they shot back up to a 34C over the course of 2 summer months and a trip to France where several pounds of cheese and baguettes were consumed.  My then boyfriend (now husband) was ecstatic.  So was his roommate (or so I’ve been told).

Then I started this whole “mom” thing.  I had to buy bigger bras twice while pregnant with Sacha.  Then I nursed him for 14 months, which left me with saggy “high Cs low Ds”, according to the bra lady who sized me up last summer.  Then, my boobs started getting bigger again: enter pregnancy number two.  Seven weeks after delivering and breastfeeding Kees, I went to get properly fitted for a nursing bra, since all of mine made my boobs look like they were trying to eat my navel.  Where do I stand now?

32E.

That’s right.  Next to that tiny 32 there is a giant E.  Again, the husband is ecstatic.

And I have come to terms with this.  I am cursed with ginormous boobs that seem to get bigger with every baby.  I tried to wear my bathing suit last week and the girls popped right out the top.  I don’t think they even make bikini tops large enough for me.  Or supportive enough.  I cannot wear most of my shirts, meaning that I was reduced to go shopping and buy large and extra large tops just to fit over my rack.  The “XL” on the tag of my T-shirt is a corrosive acid that eats away at my inner-skinny-girl.  I keep trying to tell myself that it is only a temporary glitch and that they will go back to normal once I am done having kids. That, or I will have to go back to work to save up for the plastic surgery required to put them back where they belong.

The silver lining to all this: at least I won’t be headed to the asylum anytime soon.

This post is written in the spirit of random letters.  And I ask you to take a guess as to the origins of the title of this post.

Dear Sacha,

I love you, but for the love of Jesus would you do Maman a favour and not start screaming whenever your brother is crying?  Or when I have to turn my attention every so slightly toward the wee babe in order to, oh, I don’t know, change his poonami of a diaper?  Also, if you could stop running out into the road  every time we park in the driveway and I let you out of the car while I am taking your brother out of the car?  And stop swiping your brother’s soother out of his mouth when he is trying to relax! And could you PUH-LEEZE learn some words and start talking soon?  The ubiquitous “Eh! Eh! Eh!” while pointing to a bajillion things and getting pissed at me when I cannot figure out what you are getting at is going to drive driving me to drink.

Your loving, cuddling, ever subserviant,

Maman

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Dear Kees,

I love that you sleep so well at night.  One waking per night?  Genius.  Sleeping seven and a half hours straight last night?  I could dance naked on my front lawn from giddiness. In keeping with the wonderful sleep theme, I would really appreciate if you could go back to being the nap king.  It was a good ride, napping for 2+ hours in the morning and afternoon.  The past week without these naps is going to drive driving me to drink.

Oh, and keep up the good eating and fattening up.  I likes me a chubby baby.

Love, cuddles and kisses,

The Moomy

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Dear Pavement Ants,

I hate you, you low life scrum sucking pieces of shit.  There is no food for you to eat in the basement, unless you like eating shitty diaper wipes. If you continue to crawl out of the bathroom baseboards, I will be forced to continue employing Operation Dyson Aspiration-Extermination. And no, you cannot form a new colony in the canister of my beloved vacuum.  If only I could get the Orkinaters on your asses, I would.  But fortunately for you, I value the life of my baby more than your execution.  God help you when the new owners move in in three weeks.  They don’t have kids.  They will not be so kind.

A sincerely pissed yet restrained,

Ant-hater

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Dear Weather,

You suck.  You send nice weather only to turn to grim torrential monsoon rains at a moment’s notice. This is not acceptable, particularly when I am out walking with the mini humans in the half ton double stroller. The least you could do is provide more than a 2 minute warning.  Or throw down some umbrellas before you start washing away my sins.

A most penitent,

Mrs. Mustard

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Dear Hips,

It’s been over 6 weeks.  Although I appreciate the effort in making me appear “curvy”, I would appreciate if you follow Waist’s lead and reduce your size ASAP.  I would like to be able to wear some of my summer clothes on the odd day that it is actually summer outside rather than full length sweaty sweats.  All I am asking for is 3 inches.  That’s not too much to ask.  Right?  RIGHT?

Signed,

The Enabler

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Dear blogosphere,

I am sorry I’ve been playing hookie.  But I had 30 absences in grade 12 calculus (a local bar saw a lot of me that term) while still getting a 97% term average and it sort of grew on me.  I’ll try and be more studious and diligent.  Please don’t flunk me!

Mrs. Mustard

I realize that I have not posted in 3 weeks. Kees is now 3 weeks old. Coincidence? I think not.

Obviously having a new baby takes up a lot of my time, and add the fact that Sacha is 21 months old and just a tad jealous. Ok, he likes to smack his little bro upside the head when he is nursing. Or grab his face and try to pull it off. Or pull him off the boob. All of these resulting in my unlatching Kees, carrying him and his big brother by one hand to his room where he serves a time out for being so cruel to his baby bro.  Normal toddler fun, right?

Then there’s the issue of feeding. Kees is a mere 3 weeks old and has already gained 3 lbs. So guess what I am doing most of the time…

There’s good timing.

It started with the sale of our house, which had been on the market for two months. We accepted a fantastic offer on Saturday evening. My due date was Sunday.

On Thursday morning, Kees was born. No more house showing, so no more unnecessary cleaning. This is a GOOD thing.

Then there is bad timing.

Yesterday, a week after selling the house, 4 days after Kees’s birth, my Pepère (grandfather) passed away.

I want to be there for my mom, who has just lost her daddy. I know what that is like.

I want to be there for my Memère (grandmother) who has just lost her husband of 62 years. Col. Mustard and I were married on their 57th wedding anniversary.

Memère & Pepère provided the piano on which I learned to love music. We didn’t have a piano, but my mom used to take me to their house to practice on theirs for the first 5 years of my lessons. Then, when opportunity arose, they gave my parents the money to buy a piano for my sister and I, who were both into lessons by that time. They used to pick me up from school and take me to my many music festival performances every year for all of my youth. They usually bought a festival pass, they were there so often.

They always made a point of attending every honor roll presentation, every speech competition, every poetry recitation, every award ceremony throughout my schooling. That’s the kind of grandparents they were. That’s the kind of Pepère he was to me.

Pepère loved my husband. He loved conversing with him about pharmacy (my husband’s profession), faith, religion, and why we should go back to using trains instead of tractor-trailers and big trucks for transporting freight (this one came up a lot, for some strange reason).

Although we all knew that this was coming, as Pepère had been battling Alzheimer’s fro the past few years, I was really hoping that he would hang in there until we moved back to our home province and that I would be able to see him again. Now, with the way the timing works out, it is actually impossible for me to attend the funeral. I have a 5 day old son, who is not able to fly due to airline policies, and even if he could, I am not entirely certain that flying for 8 hours, then driving for another 5 hours just to make it to the funeral wouldn’t send me over the edge of complete mommy madness, as though having traditional baby blues and stitches isn’t enough.

In a lot of cases, timing seems to bring everything together when you need it.

I guess this is just not one of those cases.

He’s here!

The juicy details are:

Water broke COMPLETELY in my bed and all over my floors at 11:40 pm May 14th. Must now get feather bed dry cleaned.

Arrived at hospital at midnight, leaving a trail of water as I walked from the car to the entrance. Stripped down to housecoat in elevator due to disgusting leakage in pants and crocs.

Normally there are no anaesthesiologists at night, so no epidurals. I tried the laughing gas, but it made me want to toss my cookies. I tried the morphine-gravol drip, it did nothing. The contractions seemed so much worse this time than with Sacha. Tony had to leave the room a few times during them (nurses took care of me) because he thought HE was going to toss his cookies from seeing me writhe in pain. My doctor pulled some strings and I got an epidural at 3:30 am. I have never been so happy.

Started pushing at 6:50 am, and by 7:12 am on May 15th, the doctor announced that we had a baby boy. We both took a real hard look at his penis, as we both thought that it would be a girl. Turns out intuition is NOT always right

Birth stats to satisfy your curiosity:

• Name: Kees Victor
• weight: 7 lbs 6.5 oz
• length: 18 3/4 inches
• His name is pronounced Case, but Kees is the Dutch spelling of it, and since he is named after Tony’s paternal grandfather, who was Dutch, we kept the Kees.
• Victor was my paternal grandfather
• He is 2 lbs heavier than Sacha was at birth, but only 1 inch longer.  This makes for excellent chubby cheeks and a cute double chin.  He came home from the hospital in a sleeper that Sacha only fit when we has over 1 month old

I’ve been told it takes a special woman to be a mother of boyS. Here’s hoping I’m the right kind of special!