In a time that I described as completely boring earlier this week, a little thrill was just what I needed.

I came home on Tuesday slightly earlier than usual from work, as I had a dental appointment to get to, and I felt I had to brush my teeth before I went. Do you do that? Or I am the only freak who thinks that they can cover up years of neglect with one cleaning?? Anyway, I pull into my driveway and there’s a strange mini-van sitting there.

I immediately assume it’s a tradesperson. Because Mark does this; he books people in to give quotes on new windows or basement wiring or whatever and doesn’t tell me anyone’s coming. I make a ‘well, hello and what are you doing here?’ sort of face at the guy, and he seemingly reluctantly rolls down his window and starts to talk.

Reluctantly, as I was clearly at risk of blowing his cover. He’s an undercover cop, he’s on a stakeout as our neighbourhood has been mentioned in some intelligence they have on a large B & E operation (you know, break and enter, I’m all down with the cop lingo now, heh). And he’s not even actually local police; he’s come up from the big city with his information and his binoculars and his book to read while he waits.

Of course I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone that he was there, so I immediately tweet it (well, hell, no one local is reading, right?). He was very nice, we had a lovely chat, I checked his ID to make sure he wasn’t actually sitting there wanting to break into my house (and, like, steal all my stained furniture and cheap Ikea prints and plastic H&M jewellery), and gave them permission to continue to use our house as a vantage point. Him or one of his colleagues have been there off and on since, but just during daytime working hours.

*

Oliver and I have a regular date now. It’s called grocery shopping. He sits in the cart, eats a bagel, we chat, and I attempt to fill said cart with enough food to cover all our meals without feeling the need to order in very often. Often it’s Saturday morning while his brother is napping at home. Mark stays home and does stuff.

I quite like this time as it’s rare for us to hang out alone together. And Oliver is incredibly pleasant one-on-one (inference: some of his behaviour that I don’t enjoy so much is clearly linked to his resentment that the production of a sibling means he gets less of our attention…duh). We have nice, funny chats.

Last night, I had to do a quick mid-week run to the store, because today’s his last day at the daycare he’s been at for two years, and we wanted to get them some nice gifts (e.g. chocolates, flowers, etc.). The boys are switching to a daycare in our actual town, much closer to home. We couldn’t get in there before because they don’t accept infants.

Anyway, we’re out, we’re chatting, and we start talking about police, which is not an abnormal topic of conversation, because he has that normal 3 year old boy obsession with emergency vehicles of any sort. And I realize that he’s deduced that because the police are spending time around our house, that bad guys are circling the house, too. He even gave me the quivering lip!

Which led to a conversation about how the police are actually preventing the bad guys from hanging around near us, and me realizing yet again that he understands and processes so much more than I think. I think the cheekiness and willfulness can overshadow the depths of his reasoning. I need to get to know this kid more. We need more dates.

*

Nothing like making myself feel insecure and like a teenager hoping the cool kids will like me all over again.  Or something like that.  I’ve registered to go to BlogHer.  Not because I plan on making this thing that is my little space anything other than it is, but more because it’s an opportunity to listen to some pretty cool women whose words I adore reading talk about this thing that they are really good at.  Also a weekend in Chicago (which I enjoyed when I went about 7 years ago) on my own (or with a friend? or a new friend? anyone? anyone?) around the time of my birthday sounds pretty damn cool.

I feel like I have nothing interesting to say right now (fingers crossed that means that tomorrow I’ll be out of my blogging funk and henceforth will regularly spurt words of vague interest forevermore).

So why say anything at all?  I guess to have  a place holder.  Hello, person who has stopped here briefly following a link from a comment I’ve made somewhere else.

Life is pretty routine right now.  Work is busy.  The house is a mess.  The dog is not walked enough.  The laundry and dishes never end. 

I spend evenings and weekends attempting to enjoy time with my children, but primarily just trying to survive it because holy hell our 3 year old is testing us every three seconds and has regressed on potty usage post-surgery and yet is simultaneously a hilarious conversationalist and a little SHIT.  And our rapidly approaching 16-month old is a little copy cat of said older brother (but mostly he’s lovely and cheeky and forgivable because he still doesn’t really know better and this learning to walk and talk thing is way too entertaining and adorable).

And I never find the balance between taking care of myself and taking care of them and paying any attention at all to my marriage and that poor damn dog.  And forget the house of filth.  This is our life.  Christ.  I’m depressing myself now.

So until something more interesting happens or strikes me (not, you know, literally, hopefully), I’ll be reading instead of writing.

I saw lots of upset parents yesterday, which is what happens when you spend time at a children’s hospital. Happy kids (because of lots of good toys and kind professionals and all sorts of positivity) but upset parents.  I wasn’t really upset; I was concerned and stressed.  The nurse, in pre-surgery consultation, told me to make sure I ate something to boost my blood sugar while he was being operated on, because loads of parents pass out in the recovery room and, she assured me, “lose control of their bowel and bladder”.  Why thank you, that’s lovely.

The only time I actually got really upset yesterday was sitting in the surgery waiting room, watching Oliver play before it was his turn (the REALLY good toys were in there).  A premature baby was wheeled in, presumably about to have surgery as well.  And the parents were just sobbing.  The mother was clutching a doll so hard her knuckles were white.  The baby’s name was Emma.  I hope she is okay. She was so tiny.  And obviously what was going on was so much riskier than what we were experiencing.

Oliver’s surgery was low-risk.  I didn’t have a lot of questions, I did my on-line reading about the procedure, listened to them quote stats about anaesthetic reactions and gave consent for something like an epidural.  It look as long as they said it would (about an hour).  I trusted that these were professionals.  It helped that his surgeon was the chief of pediatric surgery and a quick google search reveals him operating on conjoined twins.  I think if he can handle that, a little groin stitch up is a piece of cake.

I was expecting to find him asleep on a gurney when they took me into the recovery bay.  I assumed he’d slowly come out of his anaesthetic fog and need comforting and we’d go home after he had some juice or a freezie.  Instead I found him hysterical, jumping out of the bed and into my arms, as much as he could with an IV and other leads coming from him.  He was basically inconsolable, and ultimately ANGRY.  He didn’t know what was going to happen to him yesterday.  I had an internal debate about how much to tell him before he went in.  I assessed that he could know that he was going to get fixed, and he knew that something was wrong with his nether regions, that lots of doctors have looked at it.  But I didn’t explain going to sleep, getting cut open, an IV in the hand (which is, ugh, one of the most horrible things anyone can experience, probably one of the worst memories of both hospital childbirths).   I didn’t buy him Franklin Goes to the Hospital, or whatever.  He didn’t know how he was going to feel when he woke up, what the hell had happened while he was asleep.  And he was PISSED OFF.

Eventually he calmed down, fell asleep so deeply in my lap the nurse put an oxygen mask near his face as his heart rate had slowed down so much.  And within two hours of his surgery being complete, I was told to get him dressed and wheel him downstairs.  Mark hadn’t even had a chance to come and meet us yet!  It seemed quick.  But fine.

He’s fine.  He’s distressed by the sight of his incision and stitches.  He doesn’t like the plastic paint they put on it instead of a band aid.  He doesn’t like the hole in his hand from the IV (don’t blame you, kid).  He’s completely himself, being too boisterous, kind of like the dog after she got fixed as a puppy and ended up ripping her stitches open again because she never actually rested after her surgery.  He’s a little bit not himself, because he’s sleeping in his bed right now, and he fell asleep in his pushchair like 2 hours ago as we were wandering around the shopping mall (can’t even remember the last time he did that).

I’m glad it’s over.  Still a little bit stressed obviously as we monitor his recovery and make sure everything is okay, but I think all my stress comfort eating of the last few days (why yes, I did eat apple stuffed french toast and bacon and coffee in the hospital cafeteria while he was being cut open to cope with the fact he was being CUT OPEN – and it was damn good) can subside.

Speaking of which, I’d better go finish making that cottage pie for dinner…

Barring any unanticipated complications, Oliver’s having inguinal hernia repair surgery tomorrow morning.  Wish him luck.  Wish us luck.  It’s very minor surgery but he’s still going under – under the knife and under anaesthetic.

I’m quite enjoying his glee at his new skill:

[googlevideo=http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-901992529331637048&hl=en-CA]

Any plans I had this week of getting back to normal routines, of enjoying the reunion with my kids has been kicked upside the head by a nasty little tummy bug that Callum spread around.

Not sure if he got it on the plane, or he picked it up at daycare and it was so virulent it hit him immediately (most of his class has been off this week) but he’s been ill since then and Mark and I were splitting up working from home duties.

Until last night when Mark started upchucking rather violently.

I think I’ve possibly had a very mild version. I’m fine.

I’m mostly worried about Oliver getting it and then having his hernia repair surgery next week cancelled.  That would sort of suck.  I just want it to be fixed, to get it over with.

Anyway, back to attempting to work from home, and quitely likely another simultaneous mother-and-child clothing change due to major leakage.  So tired of cleaning up pooh this week.  Nothing else is getting cleaned up. Barely gotten any work done during work hours, house is a disaster, and I’m a little ball of stress.

Le sigh.  This too shall pass, right?