Catching Up and My New Exercise Routine

So I seem to have slowed down a bit on my blogging. There are a few reasons for this. A big one is Wesley. He's constantly climbing and getting into trouble. It makes it hard for me to sit down at the computer to get somthing like done. He's sitting on the couch with Darcy right now so I'm trying to squeeze in a quick post right now. Another reason is that a lot of the stuff I've been thinking about over the past few weeks revolves around Nick's job and it's just a lot of stuff that can't be written about in a forum like this so I haven't really had much else to say.

I will say that Nick is now back from his three weeks of training in Ottawa and are we ever glad! While Nick was away the toilet broke, the computer broke, the hot water heater got replaced and then the new one started leaking, we had tons of snow and Wesley got sick. It was a lot of stuff to deal with while he was away so that's another reason why I didn't write much. It all got dealt with but I had a lot of headaches as a result!

Nick had a few days off after returning home and has now been back at his 11+ hour days for a few days now.

If you've been following my blog for a while then you'll know that fitness has always been an issue for me. I'm a naturally thin person so the motivation to exercise has always been lacking for me. However, now that I'm in the later half of my 30's, the need to exercise and stay in shape is really becoming apparent to me. I tried running but it was never fun for me. I completed my one and only 5K run and I felt great about that, but I never got the enjoyment from running that I needed to stay motivated to keep doing it. Running was always a chore for me and that made it hard to do, especially in bad weather. I needed to find something else.

This past fall our church started a new exercise group and the idea appealed to me right from the start. It uses a DVD put out by a woman named Leslie Sansone and it is a walking based program. Following the DVD you walk on the spot at home with some upper body stuff mixed in along the way. Small weights or resistance bands are used to make it more of a whole body workout. I knew from the first time I tried it that this was much more the type of exercise I could get into. The group at church makes me more accountable and it makes it fun to go there and exercise with others, from young moms to a woman in her 80's (who is one of the greatest women I've ever met in my life). Because of Nick's schedule I'm not always able to get there so I bought a different DVD to use at home. My own DVD is a much more intense workout than the one we use at church (3 miles instead of the option of 1, 2 or 3 where we were doing 1 hoping to soon increase to 2). It uses resistance bands which I'm hoping will help with toning my arms and upper body. I plan to use it a few times a week while Wesley is sleeping and hopefully it will help keep me in shape.

That's about it for now. I've got to go get Wesley off the stairs!

The Apples and the Trees

It is pretty apparent when you look at our family that Darcy looks a lot like me and that Wesley looks exactly like Nick. We're already seeing a lot of personality traits in each of them that mirror the parent they look like too. This was played out for me so perfectly last night that I had to laugh. A lot.

In a nutshell, last night at bath time Darcy got undressed and left her clothes on the floor. After the bath Wesley picked them up, carried them to her room and put them in the hamper.

Now in Darcy's (and my) defense, she would have picked them up before bed but Wesley couldn't wait. He needed those clothes cleaned up right away.

Very Frustrated

I had an appointment with Wesley's pediatrician this afternoon at 2:30 to follow up about the hearing assessment we had last week. When I got there, 3 other families were waiting in the hallway because the door was locked. One called on her cell phone and found out that the office was open but some kid had apparently locked the door. The waiting room which is usually pretty empty at that time of day was already full.

As we waited I could tell something was wrong. The doctor was on the phone a lot and not really seeing a lot of patients. At one point he was clearly angry and was speaking quite loudly on the phone so we could all hear what he was saying. Apparently someone else had taken his prescription pad and had written some prescriptions. He was going back back and forth with the police and a few others trying to track down the person. This was taking a lot of his time.

After waiting over an hour and 20 minutes I had to leave. The receptionist told me I was next but I couldn't wait any longer or else I'd miss Darcy's school bus. She brought the doctor to the window and he told me that Wesley is going to be referred to an ear, nose and throat doctor. He brought me into the exam room quickly and looked in Wesley's ears. Sure enough, they're infected again. I told him I couldn't wait to get a prescription then so he told me he'd arrange it with the pharmacist and have it delivered to my house this evening. When I called the pharmacist to arrange payment for the prescription, he didn't have a prescription for Wesley and the doctor was conveniently gone for the day by that time.

I'm pretty frustrated with the whole experience. I understand that the prescription pad theft is an important issue for the doctor to get sorted out, but that waiting room full of babies is pretty important too. I wasn't the only person who left without being seen.

I was supposed to be doing my groceries for the week at that time but I figured Wesley's doctor's appointment was more important. I also needed to get my glasses fixed on the way home but that didn't happen either.

I left a message at the doctor's office after getting off the phone with the pharmacist so hopefully this will all be cleared up early tomorrow morning. I feel better after venting about it.

Wesley's Hearing Assessment

We went to the hospital this afternoon for Wesley's hearing assessment. The appointment was booked for 1:00, exactly Wesley's nap time so I thought it was going to be a disaster. Really, it couldn't have gone better.

We checked in a few minutes early and Wesley was his charming self to the women in the reception area. We then waited only a few minutes before being called in to see the audiologist right on time. She was really helpful and clearly skilled at testing kids that young. She made it really easy for Wes and for me which was great.

The first thing was to test to see if he has any fluid in his ears. She told me we were looking for a lot of activity on the graph in front of us to indicate a lack of fluid. We saw a straight line for both ears which mean both have a lot of fluid in there.

We then entered the sound booth to check his hearing. He had little probes put in his ears and he responded when he heard things in them. She then attached a special headset to the bone behind his ear which would somehow simulate how he'd hear without the fluid present. Between the two tests she was able to determine that his hearing would be normal without the fluid, but with the fluid he has a 30 decibel hearing loss. This loss is not permanent and will be corrected once the fluid is gone.

So how does that happen? I'm not sure but I think it's pretty likely that we will have to get tubes inserted in his ears. The results from today need to go to the pediactrician first and then we'll go from there.

So that's the latest update. I'll post more as I know more!

Check This Out!

When we were at the Robert Munsch exhibit in Montreal we were interviewed by a reporter from the Montreal Gazette. Click here to see what she said.

Home!

Our Christmas/New Year travelling is all done and we are back at home. We've had a great time but I am glad to be home and be pretty much back into our routine. Darcy will be going to school this afternoon and everything should be getting back to normal. The house is a mess so I've got a lot of work ahead of me, figuring out what to do with all this new Christmas stuff.

We decided to fly to Montreal this year and that was definitely the right choice to make. It was just so much easier than trying to drive that distance in the winter with two little monkeys. Nick is currently in Ottawa for training (for three weeks) and so I had to get home with the kids on my own. I definitely did not want to drive that distance on my own, so flying it was.

We had a belated Christmas in Montreal with the family there. There was, of course, a delicious meal, lots of presents and our annual Pit game. Fun times. We also went toboganning on Mount Royal and to a Robert Munsch exhibit at a museum there. Very cool.

There was a big snowstorm brewing in Montreal yesterday, just as we were preparing to fly home. I was a little nervous about that but we managed to get out just before the worst of the storm hit. We were a bit delayed leaving (an hour on the tarmac) but finally managed to get in the air. Wesley was pretty cranky by that time but finally fell asleep in my arms as we were taking off. Darcy loves flying. She got her own rolling suitcase for Christmas and was thrilled to be able to pull it through the airport with her. It was pretty funny.

Our flight between Toronto and Windsor was on a very small, very full plane and Darcy was a pretty big hit with the people around us. She had asked if I would make pancakes for supper when we got home. I told her I would and that as a reward for her being so good all day while we were flying I would put M & M's in them. Well then she leaned across the aisle and told the people over there, "I'm going to have pancakes with M & M's for supper." The people for a few rows around us all laughed and one guy asked if he could come over. She said, "Sure, everyone come over and my Mom will make you pancakes too." More laughter. Then she said, "And my address is..." and proceeded to shout it out for the whole plane to hear. She was a little disappointed when she found out that we were only joking and that none of these strangers would actually be coming to our house for pancakes! And all of this took place after she marched up with centre aisle of the plane shouting "I have to go pee!"

All of our luggage arrived without any problem which didn't seem to be the case for a lot of people on our flight. There was a story on CTV last night about how much luggage Air Canada is losing right now so I was extra glad to be home with all of our things.

So that's about it for now. I've got some pictures up on facebook and I'll have them up on Flickr later today.