Boot Camp starts today!

We are half way through the weekend, and we are doing all right despite Cody having a very late night on Friday. Mike took him skating in town with some cousins and he had a blast, but he did not get home until after 9 p.m., much to my dismay! He was pretty grumpy yesterday, but is doing quite well today so far. I am doing all right. I too, am less grumpy today, which is nice. Micah slept very well last night, which likely helped me even though we messed up with our diaper laundry timing and were up until after midnight to finish it. Oops!

Today is when things are really going to get interesting around here. I don't even know how wise I am to broadcast this in here, but today we (Mike and I) are going to start a workout program called Chalean Extreme. Some of you have probably heard of it, but for those of you who have not, suffice it to say it is a very intense program based on muscle building. There is cardio too, which I hear is quite intense. It is apparently okay for beginners as well as advanced because you can customize it by using less weight, doing fewer reps...etc. Either way, I am quite scared about it. Sounds silly, I suppose, because I can always shut it down if it is too hard, but that is what scares me the most. I am not afraid of the pain. Okay, I'm a little afraid of the pain. What scares me the most is that I will quit. This is a three month program. Well, technically 12 weeks. It is three sections of 28 days each. So, I thought I would report in here that I am starting today and then I will (hopefully) be more likely to stick with it, seeing you all know about it now. I will report in here about my progress. I know I am in terrible shape right now, but I sure look forward to feeling strong once again. I just hope I can do this. In some ways, it is harder that I will be doing it with Mike because we will have to coordinate a time when we can both do it and the boys are somehow occupied...etc. I don't really want to do it in the evenings for fear of being kept awake at night, but I also don't want to do it first thing in the morning because I thought I had heard it is not best to do it when you first wake up because your body will not be able to give 100%. Ideally, I would do it in the afternoons when Jamie is sleeping and Micah is too, and Cody can just ignore me or participate...whatever he chooses. But I can't do that if I am waiting for Mike. We'll see. We'll have to work out some kind of a plan for week days.

So, that's all I'll say for now. I am nervous, excited...a little stressed, but I hope this will be good. I am not exactly brimming with energy these days, so it will probably be hard to motivate myself to do this every day, but I believe if I can force myself I will probably get my energy back. I have taken all my measurements, which I will most definitely not be sharing in here, and I will check in every week to see whether I have made any measurable progress. Maybe this will help me to pull out of my depression a bit. I have to get strong so I can handle a horse in the spring! Not to mention my own boys! Right now I can barely lift Cody. He is big for his age, but I would still like to be able to lift him without such a struggle. I better get going. Soon we'll need to prepare lunch for the boys and we still have a lot to do today because we are having company later. Sheesh. I forgot about that. I should be cleaning right now! I'm off!

Who won today? I think it was a tie...

Oh boy. Oh boys, I guess, is more like it. Today was not good. Really it was quite horrible, actually. I am hiding in my room for now, and letting Mike have a shift. I knew it would be a tough day because all of us are sick (not badly, but enough to inhibit proper sleep and to make us all grouchy) and Cody was up at 6 a.m. He had every light in the house on and was dragging a chair across the kitchen in order to climb up and access a pair of scissors. Why? Well, to open a package of Fiber One to add to his bowl of yogurt, which he was about to dish out. I was not impressed. Micah was already up crying, and Jamie was awake, thanks to the racket of both of his brothers. The day only went downhill from there. I will not waste any energy reliving it in here. Suffice it to say, I didn't win any parenting awards today, and Cody did his best to be as bratty as possible. We didn't really have any heart-warming moments today.

Tomorrow I have to take the boys to their cousins' place and drop off Thing One and Thing Two. Thing Three, Micah, is coming with me to town for his four month check-up. Okay, so he is six months old. We are running a little late because he was sick at two months old and skipped his first appointment. We were unable to reschedule until he was nearly four months old. Now, ironically, he is sick again and I highly doubt they will give him his immunizations, but they advised me to go anyway so the doc can weigh him, measure him and check to make sure he does not have an ear infection or anything with this current sickness. I doubt that he does because he has not had any fever, but he is definitely not feeling well, so I guess it will be good to have him checked. The only thing is, it makes for a long day when I have to take the boys to my sister-in-law's place and then drive all the way to town, only to have to repeat this process again when he is feeling better. I'm telling you, I am so very tired of medical appointments, and I am somewhat desperate to have them all over with, but that's what it's like when I am the one who takes all three of them and myself to the doctor. Not complaining about that, just explaining why the incredible number of appointments. I guess it doesn't help that Cody and I have both been seeing eye specialists, and of course when I was pregnant the number of appointments was bordering on the ridiculous. Maybe he will be well enough tomorrow to get vaccinated. We'll see what the doctor says. At least it is Friday tomorrow. That brings some relief.

Tonight I will be home alone, but not until a little later. I don't look forward to it, but it is what it is. I might watch Mama Mia or something. Maybe there will be a feel good movie on tv. I really think that February has got us all down. Not enough time outside, too much time stuck together in close quarters. Our house is not small, but with three boys and me all day, usually all in the same room, it gets to be too much. Hence the reason I am hiding in my room right now, and may I say, it is absolutely delightful in here. Cricket is sleeping peacefully on my bed, and somehow I am not hearing any screaming, crying, yelling, or even much talking out there. They are eating, I think. Snacks, that is. I fed them an early supper. Soon they will bath, and shortly after that they will get a story and go to bed. I haven't even had supper yet, but I think I might skip it tonight and have some popcorn later instead. Probably a bad idea, and definitely inspired by the fact that I will be alone here.

Anyway, I suppose I should end this here. It seems like I have been something of a downer for the last several entries. There has not been a ton of comic relief during this last few weeks of battles, so I haven't had much good stuff to post. I don't even have anything exciting to share in the equine department, unfortunately! Maybe I'll post a few pictures of the horses I have looked at some time. We'll see.

Ah! There it is...the screaming. Yep, it is back in full force. Cody is playing Parent, and Jamie is bawling. The bath is running too, so that's good. I will likely be needed to take care of Micah for a while. Tomorrow I will try to post Micah's results from his appointment. I always find it fun to find out what percentiles he is in as far as weight, height and head size go. Well, specifically height and weight. Hm. Those two words look like they should rhyme, but they don't. Deep thoughts.

I must go. Perhaps I will be back tomorrow around the same time. Good evening to all.

The battle rages on!

February is finally here, and though it brings with it more of the cold winter weather we are used to, it also brings the hope of spring. For some reason, February is a more hopeful month than January. January is a time to hunker down in a warm cozy spot and hide there for as long as possible before spring shows up. I am not done hunkering, but I am certainly looking forward to March. February feels to me like one deep inhalation of fresh, crisp air.

Weather aside, my week is going all right. Despite my disastrous two days in the middle of last week, we seem to be back on track with Cody and his time-outs. Every day we have battles, and sometimes long ones. Today I administered a time-out, Supernanny style, and it took probably close to 45 minutes before he finally submitted. I did have to break form a couple of times in there and up the ante by telling him if he didn't get it right he would not be getting any cookies for lunch. We do not normally have cookies around here anymore, but this week we do, and I have found that they add a certain extra motivation for him to submit to a time-out. Today, he lost all cookie privileges for the whole day. Bummer. In the end, I had to go to the living room and disassemble his entire geo-trax set-up and put it all back in he --

Oh the irony that my sentence was interrupted by the necessity to administer yet another time out. That was hours ago. I just finished another one. Phew. It is hard work. In fact, the time-out is much harder on the parent than it is on the child, I am convinced of it. Miraculously, today I did not lose my cool. I barely even yelled during the whole day. That sounds terrible, doesn't it? It is very hard not to lose it when your kids are so good at pressing all your buttons. Today, during Cody's time-out, he actually grinned and ran away giggling into the living room. The first time, I walked after him and carried him back to his chair. The second time I stood like a statue and employed The Look. I did not move, but stood there with my finger on the button of the timer. It took a few minutes, but eventually, a sheepish Cody, still laughing but clearly not enjoying himself anymore, slunk back to the kitchen and crawled into the chair. I continued drilling him with the iron stare until he was sitting nicely and making no sound. I then pressed the button and the time-out continued. I definitely broke protocol a couple of times today, but I think it was in a way that worked for Cody. I am getting better about maintaining silence and a stone-cold facial expression. Inside I am trying not to laugh. Not because I find it funny, but the kind of laugh that comes out in frustration and makes you look and feel very weak. I was not about to allow that to escape or he would know he had won. Even though I went through several battles with this discipline today, I know it was so much better than the kind of battles we were having before trying this type of time-out. If I had sent him to his room and forced him to stay there instead, he would have been a raging volcano for a LONG time today. Instead, we battled it out in the kitchen, but I remained very calm (at least on the outside) and ---

Oops, another one. This one went much more smoothly and I didn't have to reset the timer at all. I hope it is not fluke, and that it will continue to work and to get better and better. If it does I really think it will benefit him as well as us. I am trying to teach him that he has the power to control how long his time-out lasts, or even whether he gets one in the first place, by his own behavior and attitude. He is not yet four, so it is understandable that it will take a while for him to really get that. But at least he will start to learn now.

Okay, we just tucked the boys in, and I would say this was a good day. Yes, there was disobedience. Yes, there were fights between brothers. Yes, there were consequences. But there was victory, and the battles were won by the parental team rather than the shrimps. Woo hoo!

In other news, I went and met another horse last night. She was pretty, but she had a ton of bad habits and I was not impressed with her behavior or her personality. So, cross one buckskin off the list. Too bad. She was very pretty, and apparently really smooth and comfortable to ride. The search continues, with one beautiful black and white paint named Flash stuck in my head day and night. I better sign off. This post has taken close to four hours to complete. Good night.

An Ordinary Saturday

Saturday is here and we are all doing all right. Cody and I both have colds and it seems that Micah does too as of this morning. As it turns out, we did go for our date on Thursday evening. The boys did well with a babysitter, even though they did not know her. Micah came with us. We enjoyed a nice supper at The Keg in town, but I must say I felt pretty old when we arrived back home by 8:30 p.m. That would have been bad enough had we lived in the city, but we had a 45 minute drive to get back home and we were still here that early. It was better for Micah to come home so he could enjoy some crawl time on the floor. There wasn't much else we could have done in town in the freezing weather with a baby in tow, so we came home and relaxed instead. It was nice to get out of the house. I especially needed to get away from this place and from my older boys, just to clear my head and have a break from the incessant chaos. My kids are at difficult stages right now, but I really feel that the time of year is also adding to the difficulty. I really look forward to spring when we can all hang out together outside without worrying about frostbite. The boys are fine outside with their winter attire, but I really have nothing to wear outside that is warm enough for this weather.

Yesterday was worlds better than Thursday and Wednesday were. Cody was somewhat subdued because his cold was so bad when he woke up in the morning. Mike had the day off so he took all the boys for most of the day while I literally locked myself in our bedroom and worked on my homework. My assignment was a really difficult one, so I really needed some space and some quiet to be able to focus on it. I am happy to report that I got it finished by the evening and I handed it in even though it is not due until Monday. Now I can relax for the whole weekend. I'm a little worried I may have done it wrong, but I will find out when I get it back!

Today is dump day, a most exciting event. Seeing we have missed it the last two weeks in a row, we have three weeks of garbage to haul today. I doubt I will participate in the joyous occasion, but I will certainly revel in some quieter time at home if Mike will take even one of the boys along with him. I'm about to find out whether he will do that or not. The rest of the day will consist of housework. I know, that sounds kind of like a disappointing way to spend a Saturday, but for some bizarre reason I don't really feel that way. Mike is going to do some work on our basement and I think I'd like to do some cleaning and organizing in our room. If I get too tired, maybe I'll even have a nap. I am also considering doing some writing. I really do want to do some work in our room though. I'd love to do some baking, but we are trying to avoid a lot of goodies right now.

So, again I apologize for my previous post. I was at the end of my rope. I have not had a moment like that since then and for that I am very thankful. I feel relieved to have my homework done and not to have any plans for the whole day today. I am off to get going. I have to start collecting some of the garbage to help Mike out.

About to blow up.

Mere words cannot describe the kind of day I'm having, nor the one I had yesterday. So much for breakthroughs. So much for positive times with Cody. I am supposed to be going on a date tonight. I don't want to go. Actually, I would like to go away for the whole weekend with just Micah. It isn't that I want to get away from Mike, it's just that if he comes too we have to bring the kids and I desperately need to get away from them. I feel like an utter failure as a mother. I have been the worst kind of example for my kids. I have to wonder what Micah thinks of all the yelling. It probably scares him. Maybe a whole week off would be good. Maybe two. I don't know. All I know is the Supernanny must have left something out of her show, because what I'm doing is not working. Nothing is working. I am at my wits' end, and feeling like a total loser. Sorry for the negative rant. I am just trying to get this out so I don't blow up. I better go. Somehow I still have to cook supper before Mike brings his co-worker home to babysit. I didn't know it was happening tonight until last night, so I have been in a panic all day trying to get everything cleaned and ready. I called Mike a while ago to cancel, but he didn't answer. I better try again. I'm off.

Spanking and other discipline...

Mercifully, we had a snow day yesterday, amid our wonderful January blizzard. It wasn't really a blizzard yesterday, but the road conditions were so bad I was relieved that Mike did not have to travel on them. In addition, I was thankful for the back-up that I had for the day. We had gone to our in-laws' for supper on Sunday evening, a rather absurd thing to do considering the traveling conditions. We got stuck several times just trying to get out of our own driveway, which Mike had plowed the day before. Again leaving their place in the evening we got stuck multiple times trying to get out of their driveway, which was very slippery and we were on an upward incline. We made it home, despite the highway looking like an NHL arena, but travel hazards aside, we broke the cardinal rule and had our boys out past their bedtime on a Sunday evening. Okay, past their bedtime on any evening is bad news, but for me, Sunday is particularly bad because there will be nobody but me left to deal with the repercussions the next few days at home. And there have been repercussions. With my kids, there always are. They really need their sleep and if they stay up late, they do NOT sleep in.

The nice thing is, I have been watching the odd episode of the Supernanny. I know, some people think it is pathetic that my generation needs shows like the Supernanny to see how it's done. I believe in generations past, spanking was the acceptable and common practice for discipline, and I can certainly say that for me, grounding was also quite prevalent. However, grounding is not effective on three year olds and younger, so that is not even a consideration. There are now a lot of confusing messages out there for us inexperienced parents and I believe that is one of the reasons we sometimes falter and look to experts for help. The spanking is no longer considered the tried-and-true method, and is even a major faux-pas. Parents are afraid to spank, even if they believe it is the best method, because they are afraid of being accused of abuse. This is not a post about pro-spanking or anti-spanking. I am simply stating that parents are looking for alternative ways of disciplining their children, and that is why shows like the Supernanny are popular. As an aside, there is a good possibility that the decline of spanking is also the reason why shows like the Supernanny are necessary, and why kids are so out of control. It all depends on which stance you take, and also on whether you want your discipline to be primarily a punishment or a learning tool. Personally, I would like a balance. Something that is undesirable to the child, but also teaches them to choose the right thing because they WANT to do the right thing, not just out of fear of punishment.

So, having said that, I have to admit that when it comes to time outs, I have not been terribly consistent with my methods. After seeing a few episodes of Supernanny, I decided to give her method a go. I saw a show where she was enforcing this time-out style with a seven-year-old, and I was encouraged to see that the poor mother, even doing everything right, had to fight with this boy for a full hour before she was able to enforce an entire seven minute time-out. Wow. I suppose it encouraged me because my three-and-a-half-year-old rarely responds on the first try. It is nice to see something carried out and to know that eventually a child will give in. I started employing this method with Cody on Saturday, I think. Maybe it was Sunday. I don't remember. All I know is, I believe it is working, and I intend to stick with it. Somehow, even though there is a battle involved, I feel more confident in the outcome, and Cody is responding well. I especially like that it really gives me a chance to communicate with him before and after administering it, which seems to help him not to remain in that irrational, out-of-control, preschool rage-mode. It is also nice to have him on a chair in the kitchen instead of continually banishing him to his room whenever he does something bad.

Mike was home yesterday because of the roads, but today he will not be home at all until late. Probably 10:30 or 11 p.m., so I am truly on my own. I'm kind of dreading the next three hours, but then again, at least it's only another three hours. Micah is sleeping right now, and the other two are currently watching Dora. I hope I am not making an error letting them watch TV, but I thought they would both enjoy a little break. As usual, I have diaper laundry going in the background, and two other clean loads that are not folded yet. I will be really stretching my culinary skills tonight and cooking Kraft Dinner for the crew. I figured if Mike wouldn't be here anyway there was no sense in busting my butt to make an elaborate meal. I'll just have a sandwich or something. Maybe a smoothie?

In other news, Oreo appears to have gone blind in one eye. Oreo is our mini-lop rabbit, for anyone who doesn't know. He is turning nine years old on April 10th, and apparently rabbits live anywhere from eight to fifteen years, so he is in the senior years. I just noticed his eye a few nights ago when I was checking to make sure he had food before we went to bed. His pupil, which is quite large on a rabbit, was kind of a milky-grey color, and looks really gross. Of course I have eyeball issues, so I can hardly handle looking at it, but it is not improving, and it really looks as though he is blind. I feel terrible about it, and I find it very depressing. I'm not sure whether to take him to a vet, or whether there is any point. What can they do about it anyway? I might call and talk to a vet to see whether it is even necessary. I have always loved pets, but it is really difficult when they hit this stage in life.

Uh-oh! I forgot to send Mike a grocery list. I better do that right now. Hopefully I make it through this evening without disaster!! Bye for now.

Snow storms and domestic bliss.

After the most incredibly mild January, or at least half of it, we are now in the middle of a winter storm. It is still quite warm out, sitting at zero right now, but we are getting a lot of snow, and by Monday the temperatures will drop significantly. It was so nice while it lasted, but it looks like winter is about to start all over again. Currently, we are snowed in. Silly, because we have a tractor here which Mike used to plow the driveway today, but the road has not been cleared and it is quite deep, so we missed our dump run. I suppose it wouldn't be so bad to miss our weekly excursion, except that we also missed it last weekend. There was a time when I relied on the dump run to get me out of the house. Now I rely on it to get Cody out of the house. If Jamie goes too, so much the better. There is nothing like having some peace and quiet during the morning. That never happens on weekdays, so Saturdays are special that way.

We had plans today, but they got cancelled. Surprisingly, not due to the weather, but the weather may well thwart our plans for tomorrow. We will have to wait and see whether the plow comes by or not, and whether the highways are passable tomorrow.

On a different note, I learned something yesterday that should be added to the Domestic Diva's Handbook. Okay, so there is no such handbook, but there should be. As I puttered around the kitchen yesterday, cleaning and organizing, I pondered the state of my oven mitts. Yes, it was a profound moment in my history as a housewife. My oven mitts were dirty. It isn't that I have never noticed that before, but I usually just considered them to be seasoned, like a good stoneware dish from the Pampered Chef. I sort of confined to my subconscious the fact that I was somewhat grossed out every time I stuck my hands inside of the mitts, and that I would never let anything else that dirty anywhere near my food. Yesterday it finally dawned on me that I should wash them, and so I gathered the rest of the kitchen laundry and started a load in the washer. I am very diligent to read laundering instructions on anything that I have never laundered before, so I had a look at the instructions. The washing instructions were nothing surprising to me, but the drying instructions threw me off a bit. Oven mitts, which are designed to be able to pick things up right out of the oven, no matter how hot, cannot be dried on high heat in the dryer. Maybe it's just me, but I'm pretty sure my dryer does not surpass the temperatures of my oven. Either way, I decided to play it safe and follow the instructions to the letter. Oven mitts take a while to dry. It turns out that not only can they not handle the high heat setting on a dryer, they also do not fare very well on the low heat setting. When I took them out later they resembled a perfect mouse habitat. They looked about three times as thick as they used to be and all their stuffing, or whatever you want to call it, was fluffing out all over the place. It was as though they had imploded. We are now in the market for a new pair of oven mitts.

And on that note, I have a fussy baby who wants to eat. I'm off for now.