Heather's Handmade Life

A world of pure imagination

Posted on November 2, 2013 by Heather Laura Clarke

Halloween 2013 will go down in our family history as the first year that all four of us really participated.

Little C turned 18 months just a few days before, and she got to trick-or-treat for the first time.

D was a farmer, of course. This boy is obsessed with all things farm. (This is him all dressed up for his preschool party)

Little C (our Oompa Loompa) had her 18-month needles that morning (yes, I felt like a bad mom for scheduling them on a holiday!) but she was a total pro. She even thanked the doctor over and over after it was done. The manners on that one! 🙂

We made a few adjustments to her costume to keep her warm trick-or-treating, as its been -1C lately. (Not sure what that is for my lovely American readers — super cold?)

Her green hairspray was the most epic part of her costume. Everyone kept exclaiming over it.

Just like last year, we trick-or-treated with our next door neighbours. So much more fun to be out with friends, rather than trekking around alone. It was great!

Enjoying their delicious rewards.

Yes, I was an Oompa Loompa, too. I made our costumes in a single naptime. Super easy.

*** (Mine is a cheap brown T-shirt from Walmart with sewed-on trim that I made, and hugely unflattering white overalls that I made from white fabric. C’s is actually a hand-me-down romper that I sewed straps into, and a brown tee that I sewed trim onto) ***

Me and mah man! He had to work most of Halloween, but we were able to grab a few quick shots together. I made his Wonka bar costume from a few sheets of Dollarama Bristol board.

***

I love Halloween, mostly because I love putting together costumes. I wish D had been on board with our Willy Wonka theme, but I appreciate that he’s old enough to choose his own costume now (ahem, however unexciting it may be).

Now I’m already thinking of next years costumes. I think Smurfs would be fun. Blue makeup hollaaaaaa!

xoxo

Mommy can’t yell. Her throat’s too sore.

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Heather Laura Clarke

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Seriously, am I really doing back-to-back posts on sickness? Is this what this blog has become?

Well, yes. Sickness is all around us these days, as we talked about the other day. Except this is the kind of sickness that is moving past the runny-nose/sneezing grossness, and into the long-term, is-it-ever-going-to-go-away variety of illin’.

(SIDENOTE: D is also illin’ because he’s lost one of his tubes, and won’t get another surgery until December or January, so we’re basically going to spend the next few months suffering from constant ear-fluid-related fevers, crankiness, and infections. Damn you, little missing tube!)

We all have lingering coughs. Post-viral coughs, I think is the right word for it. Poor D has always been prone to these — he actually went to the emergency room last fall because he wasn’t breathing well, and got a whopping dose of steroids and other fun stuff — so he has his own fancy puffer system for whenever one strikes.

For me, Darling Husband, and C, this never-going-away cough is new. And unpleasant. I grabbed D’s puffer and used it the other night (bad, I know) because I was getting to the hard-to-breathe stage. It helped, but it didn’t go away.

Until it did.
And it was replaced with THE WORST SORE THROAT OF MY LIFE.
Really.

When the saliva builds up in my mouth, I get nervous because that means I’ll eventually have to swallow it. And OMG it hurtsssssss. My voice is going in and out, too, so I’m trying to whisper whenever possible. Last night, I resorted to writing messages to Darling Husband on the kids’ MagnaDoodle.

I’ve been Googling “sore throat remedies” for days, so let’s try to salvage this whiny sickness post and turn it into something more valuable.

Heather’s possibly-helpful list of sore throat remedies:

Vaporizers. If you’re not too lazy to dig it out from the top shelf of your linen closet, that is. (And I’m not, I guess)
Gargle with warm salt water (possibly helped)
Drink a lot of fluids (OMG IT HURTS TO SWALLOW, so NO)
Drink warm, soothing tea (possibly helped)
Drink cough syrup to coat your throat (yeah, that lasts about four seconds, and then you cough so hard your throat is raw again)
Suck on lozenges (didn’t help)
No, suck on numbing lozenges, not those candyish lemonade-flavoured ones, idiot (oops)
Take two (2) Advil every four hours (JACKPOT!)

Yes, it’s true. The only thing that I’ve found ACTUALLY helps this asshole of a sore throat is to take two Advil liquigels every four hours. My throat will still hurt, but it makes swallowing hurt a lot less. According to the all-knowing internet, it’s decreasing the swelling (making it hurt less) and also just dulling the pain (ahhhh).

So if you, like me, have adorable but germy small children who are making you sick ALL. THE. TIME. with their so-called “preschool” (germschool) and “play group” (germ group) and “swimming lessons” (nasty germ-pool dipping), then go out tonight and buy yourself a gigantic bottle of Advil.

You’ll thank me for it when your husband is laughing at you because you’re writing about the plot of Homeland on a Magnadoodle because it hurts to talk.

** No, this post isn’t sponsored by Advil, but that would have been pretty cool. Hey Advil, if you’re reading this, can you make new liquigels that include throat-numbing properties? Or tranquilizers? IDK. Thanks.

I’m sick. We’re all sick.

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Heather Laura Clarke

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So I’ve been sick pretty much NONSTOP since D started preschool last month.

In my three years of parenthood, this is the first time D’s really been “out in the world,” and apparently those preschool germs are SERIOUS, man.

Here is how it goes:

D gets sick.
C gets sick a few days later.
D is better.
Darling Husband and I get sick a few days after C.
C, Darling Husband, and I are all sick together.
C begins to recover.
Darling Husband recovers.
I (finally) recover.
D gets sick again.

It’s a vicious cycle! And I swear, every single time I’m sick, EVERY TIME, that parenting while being sick (or when you’re pregnant AND parenting) is THE ABSOLUTE WORST THING TO HAPPEN TO PARENTS. EVER.

You want to lie in bed and feel sorry for yourself, but you have to get up with the kids.
You want to moan and groan on the couch, but you need to make meals.
You want to load up on NyQuil and conk out, but you’re breastfeeding and can’t take drugs (I’m done, though, so NOW I CAN, HOORAY!)
You want someone to make you tea, but the kids are too little to operate a kettle.
You want someone to feel sorry for you, but your husband is at work. DAMN HIM.
You try to keep up with your work (from home), and embarrass yourself by hacking horribly in the middle of an interview.

I knew we’d be sick a lot this year, but it’s only October and already I’ve been sick more than I have in the last three years combined.

We got Family Flu Shots last week (well, all except for Miss C, since she has an egg allergy), and dear God, please let them have guessed right about which strands are coming this winter. I heard they guessed wrong last year, which explains That Really Horrible Intense Flu That Nearly Killed Me.

I love being a mom more than anything. Really, I do. But when I’m sick, there is nothing I want to do more than SHIP THE CHILDREN AWAY TO A MYTHICAL BABYSITTER, so I can lie in bed alone, in the silence, and feel sufficiently sorry for myself.

End rant. *cough* Thanks for listening.

Mornings with my girl

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Heather Laura Clarke

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Now that we’re finally settling into our new lives — that are officially crazy-ville with scheduled activities — I’m catching my breath and taking a second to tell you about it.

D now goes to preschool two mornings a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays), takes swimming lessons on Tuesday evenings, and has gymnastics class on Wednesday mornings. Plus all three of us have playgroup at a local elementary school on Friday mornings. I KNOW, RIGHT?

Sidebar: I never anticipated being this busy with activities, but really, one of them is super-beneficial (preschool!) and another activity is an important life skill (swimming!) that D really needed to become better at. So the only real “extracurricular” is his gymnastics class, and even that is important (exercise!). I get annoyed when people comment that I’m “overscheduling” him, because I am 500% on board with kids having free time to play, not being too busy, etc. It’s two things plus school! Not nine days a week of hockey or something, sheesh.

Anyway. So my point is that D is gone for two full mornings a week, plus an hour on Wednesdays for gymnastics and 40 minutes on Tuesdays for swimming (although we have to hang around during the lessons).

And although we miss D, it’s been really, really nice to have some solo time with Miss C — something we never really got for the first 16-ish months of her life!

Yes, she wears dresses just about daily (if she’s not in a dress, she’s probably in jeggings and a cute top), and pigtails with bows and/or barrettes are also daily. I mean, are you really surprised? I’m the girl who was nutty about the thought of having a daughter someday, because bows, glitter, pink, ribbons? That’s MY JAM!

In this newfound alone time with C, I’m getting to focus more on her as an individual — not just one half of the Clarke Kids, who require constant supervision/snackage/entertainment until Mommy is exhausted.

She loves to wash her hands. Who knew what would be a big thrill, but it is. She has also started dragging the (huge! heavy!) kitchen chairs over to the sink to wash dishes with me. At first she dragged her child-sized chairs or the bathroom stool over, but they didn’t let her get high enough.

She loves to jump on our bed while I sing “Five Little Monkeys,” and she collapses onto the pillows with a big smile at the end. She is more cautious than D was at one, but still full of that awesome curious toddler energy.

Her current favourite activity is to assemble every Chapstick she can find, take off the caps, apply them to her lips, re-cap them, and carefully organize them in her “makeup case.” Then she takes each one out, pretending to count them, and begins all over again.

She amazes me every day with her intelligence. We always say we’re shocked at her speech, because of course D didn’t really talk until after his tube surgery when he was two. C says lots of words, and really understands what we say to her (wow, what a concept!). She can follow directions wonderfully. She answers “yes” questions with an “Ah-uh” sound, and answers “no” questions with a firm “Nawww!” There’s never any question about what this little girl wants.

In a way, it’s strange spending these mornings alone together. I know for my friends with just one child, they’d never think it was strange to spend time alone together — and I used to feel that way about spending time with D. No big deal.

But when you have two little ones — especially so close together — you don’t often get to focus on them individually during the hectic everyday routines. Other than at bedtime — when I spend time alone with each one, tucking them in and talking with them — C and I had never gotten much time alone together.

In these mornings together, sometimes we go shopping or run errands, and sometimes we come home and play. When D is at his swimming lesson or in his gymnastics session, we find things to do while we hang out there and wait. We colour. We people-watch. We read books.

It feels too quiet without D, but I’m getting used to it. We’re able to do things that wouldn’t interest D. We’re able to spend 20 minutes doing nothing but put on lipgloss (!) together. I get to hear her adorable little voice without it being drowned out by D’s voice.

We just get to be together, me and C.

And it’s a pretty great way to spend a morning.

xoxo

When your kid’s swimming lesson feels like a spa visit …

Posted on September 24, 2013 by Heather Laura Clarke

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Just got back from D’s third swimming lesson, and … am I sleeping yet?

After a day of racing all over town — preschool drop-off, grocery shopping (and uh, clothes-shopping) with C, dropping the groceries at home, running to the fabric store with C, picking D up from preschool — and then spending the afternoon juggling five phone interviews, a slew of emails, and a couple of writing assignments, I’m just … just … unable to form words-ish?

D and I ate a quick dinner together at 4:22 p.m., woke up C (who was napping) and Darling Husband (who was sleeping all day, since he worked the overnight shift), and ran to the pool for his 5:30 p.m. swimming lesson.

No phones are allowed on the deck. No electronics of any kind, actually. So I just sat and watched. But mostly, just … sat.

The air is too warm in a pool area, when you’re just watching. There’s a lot of white noise, from the swooshing of the water and the high ceilings and the fans, or whatever. It’s very … drowsy … in there. And pretty quiet, considering all of the suited-up kiddies bobbing around.

As I sat on the pool deck on his folded towel, I could barely stay awake. It honestly felt like I was at a spa, getting a massage or something. Yes, sitting on a FLOOR felt like a MASSAGE! You read that right.

I always tell myself I need to take time to breathe, as I fly through every day with my hair streaming behind me. Always, always, always, in a blur of productivity and deadline-meeting and RUSHING.

I’m looking forward to next Tuesday’s lesson, when I can drop to the tiled floor of the pool deck, in the too-warm air, and just … sit.