Baby Poop and Chicken Coop (my new blog name?)

Dear Jen,

You know how I like problem solving? Well, today my baby afforded me yet another exciting opportunity to problem solve. Although I'm not so sure I like it very much anymore. See, after supper today I thought to myself, "Gavin needs a new diaper." So I brought him into the living room and took off his diaper. But as I was getting his new diaper ready he took the opportunity to excape into the hallway behind me! "Oh shucks," I thought, and slowly gathered my diapering supplies to follow him into the dining room. Before I could get there however, he began crying and freaking out. As I entered the dining room I saw that he was standing on the wicker-based chair with his hands on the table, looking down at his feet and crying.

It took a moment to realize what I was looking at.

And then I screamed, "BRAD!" because you see, Gavin had POOPED all over the wicker based chair.

The wicker based chair.

It was awful. I told Brad to pick a task and predictably he chose the baby. So I was left with a chair covered with soft squishy baby poo, which was oh so impossibly intermingled into the weaves of the wicker.

Fortunately I thought pretty quick on this one: took it outside and power sprayed the daylights out of it. The chair is now drying on the porch.

So gross.

In better news, we got our first egg today from our chickens! Yay! Here it is:

Isn't it pretty?



Although there is one little problem with it. Evelyn discovered it here:

But the chickens are supposed to lay here:

So Brad went to the feed store and bought some fake eggs to put in the nesting boxes. Supposed to give the chickens the idea I guess. We'll see if it works! In the meantime, we have a beautiful, smooth, round-ish homegrown chicken egg!

You guys definitely have to visit someday--if only to experience the awesome chicken coop in person! In fact, I bet if you told Zach about that, he'd get even more excited than he is about Mickey! Just sayin'!

Love,

Jacqui

You are loved...

... and you are missed.

Dear Jacqui,

Today is the kinda day that we especially miss you guys... the sunny kind of day... the sunny kind of day that is fun to spend with friends.

Walking home from the park...
Z - "I miss Evelyn."
Me - "I know buddy..."
Z - "An' I miss Gavin... An' Masen misses Gavin."
Me - "You're right... Masen probably misses Gavin."
Z - "An' I miss Jacqui"
Me - "Yeah... me too."
Z - "Mom?  How 'bout if our daddy goes to school and we go to Noba Scoship too?"

Love, Jen

P.S. I saw your FB status... if you feel like you are even slightly in a funk... even in a "I'm so tired I smell funky" kind of funk, call.  I will sing for you or something ;)

Taking out some valuable ME time.

Dear Jen,

You may or may not be vaguely aware that I severely injured my foot Wednesday night--like, thought it was broken, got out Brad's air cast, hopping on crutches bad.

Don't ask. Let's just say it involved undeserved violent actions toward an innocent solid wood door caught in the middle of the action. Important word here being solid.

Anyway, so that night I was up for several hours writhing in pain, unable to sleep, until Brad had the brilliant idea to get me some acetamenophine from the bathroom. So I was pretty tired the next day.

Which is why I had a nap. It was excellent. I felt simultaneously like a bus had hit me and like vomiting for a couple hours afterward, but once that passed, I felt great (except for the still-injured foot)! Better yet, I managed to get to sleep by 10:00 that night. Yes, I was gearing up for the most excellently energy-filled Friday ever!

Except for one thing:

Gavin.

Gavin woke up randomly at midnight that night. The whole affair from recognition to hoping he'd fall back asleep to acceptance to wrapping and rocking him to getting back into bed only took about 20 minutes. But with all that extra sleep under my belt, my mind was far too active to drift off again. I was AWAKE. I tossed and turned for a couple hours, thinking about all the different crazy scenarios I could plan for the birth of my next child with the absence of midwifery care where I live. When I finally couldn't take it anymore, I got up, found my journal, and wrote in it for the first time since three days before I moved.

Side note: I try to keep up on journalling for posterity, but since Evelyn stopped taking naps, pretty much every entry is written on a night when I for some reason am up at 3 am and can't sleep. This is now officially the only time I have to myself!

After I finished writing, I decided to flip the pages back and read.

And now, finally, we arrive at the point of this post:

Dated Saturday, June 11th: "It has been a Chiasson-filled couple of days, and it's been lots of fun. Yesterday was, of course, running day. Jen and I started week 5 of our 13-week training program, and although I doubted, entirely intimidated by the hefty "day1" requirements, we did it! Great success! I just have to keep reminding myself that the program was very carefully designed specifically for non-runners. Plus I've been told of others who have done the program. So it can be done. All I have to do is one day at a time!
The run almost didn't happen--it took us over a half hour to get started because of awful kids. But we persevered and prevailed!

Jen and the kids came over after (yucky day--again I might add) and we had lunch and got changed and I turned on the feed of Brad's convocation LIVE! FROM ABBOTSFORD RECREATION CENTRE! Which, by the way, was so  awesome because the first part was boring speeches, through which I mostly chatted with Jen; and then after she left there was the presentation of all the Science students, through which I mostly cleaned up; and then I sat and watched Brad's teacher walk up to the podium wearing a Harry Potter scarf and cloak and carrying a sorting hat, then announce the first graduate, "Bradley Alexander the Great", then watch Brad step into the light holding a "HI MOM" sign; and then for the rest of it I posted a photo of me watching Brad on the computer on Facebook. I love live-streamed convocations!

Anyway, today we went to the zoo with the Chiassons, which was plenty fun, Great times! After we all came back for (if I may say so myself) a delicious meal of burgers, oven-baked fries and pineapple, and strawberry rhubarb sorbet for dessert. I was very pleased with our meal!

It was a good day, and the kids were good for most of it too."

I thought that might be a fun read. I can see that day at the Rotary Trail so clearly--like it was just five months ago...

Love,

Jacqui

Happy

Dear Jacqui,

I bet you were wondering what happiness looks like when you are chatting with a good friend...

"& I love YOU Evelyn!"

"No really... YOU hang up!"

Well... now you know.

Love, Jen

P.S.  You really are my life double!  I actually have taken a dance video for that same reason, but have yet to edit & upload it.  Way to be me, friend!  :)

P.P.S.  Those jerks probably don't even remember the password.

Edited to add...

Okay, I finally DID look at that blog... Sad.  Very sad indeed.

dearjen.blogspot.com

Dear Jen,

Have you ever checked out the blog holding our namesake hostage? It's kind of annoying because there are only three posts ever, all from December 2002. But then, it is also incredibly depressing--you probably shouldn't. Although knowing how thorough you usually are, you probably looked at it the day this blog was made...

Love,

Jacqui

PS I really think you should make a response video to my dancing kids one. Then I'll video Evelyn dancing to Zach dance to her dancing, and then you can make another one of Zach dancing to Evelyn dancing to him dancing to her dancing, and we can just continue back and forth through the years. It could be truly epic.

Dance Party

Dear Jacqui,

Aren't you lucky you get to "play" me?  I mean, imagine if you had to be Joel or something... that'd be way more lame.

Speaking of Joel, he had his first "real taste" of "Life Without Evelyn" on Friday...

I had Joel's laptop in the kitchen and was checking Facebook.  (It's crazy how interested I can still be only having two friends... although even when I had 100 or whatever - it was still you & K I was most sincerely interested in... but anyways...) I see that you posted a little video of E & G dancing, so I call Z to the kitchen to watch it with me.  (Side note - oh.m.goodness - Could Gavin BE any bigger!?  What the heck are you feeding him?  I swear if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it!  AND what a cutie... I almost can't handle myself!)  Okay <ahem> back to the story...

Zach comes in, gets up on a chair and pushes his face up so that it is almost touching the monitor.  Evelyn is dancing on the screen and Z brushes her image with his thumb.  Moments quickly pass, when Zach cries out "Mom!  Quick!  Put some music on so I can dance with Evelyn!"  Always up for a little dance party, I dash to the radio and whisper a prayer of thanks when one of Z's favorite "dance songs" is on.  (Since I know you are dying with curiosity, I'll link it up)

The next three minutes (or thirty-three... whatever) are spent "dancing with Evelyn"... calling to her image on the screen... encouraging her to twirl... mimicking her... and showing her Zach's our moves.


Joel observing the whole thing leans into me and says genuinely, "That may actually be one of the saddest things I have ever seen..."

I take a deep breath and respond seriously, "No... it's actually way sadder when they play 'hide & seek' on Skype"

Whatever. This just increases Joel's willingness to send me on a February Extravaganza.

Love, Jen

P.S.  If you really valued our friendship like you say you do, I think you'd spring for a fireplace... just sayin'.

Your Life as a Sitcom

Dear Jen,

Just now Evelyn was standing in my empty flour bucket (which unfortunately was emptied half-way through making bread--during Gavin's nap, which means no running out. DOH!) asking if I could give her a ride. When I explained that I was not strong enough, she replied, "Dsoel is. Dsoel is drong enuf."

Which reminded me: One of Evelyn's favourite pretending games is to pretend that one of us is Joel, and one of us is Jen. And then we go about living life and running errands. It's like a really great sitcom! Sometimes she plays Jacqui and I get to be Jen--and then Gavin of course would be Zach or Evelyn. She tries to insist that I refer to Gavin by such designated names, but the problem of course is that Gavin doesn't know that is his new name, so it doesn't really work all that well.

She likes to do that, or listen to Sharon, Lois and Bram.

Kids.

A Tale of Two Friends

Dear Jen,

I know I promised a blown-up photo of Zach and Evelyn put over the fireplace in my living room.

But you see, I haven't got a fireplace.

And besides, I frankly don't have the funds to pay for a photo to be blown up--that stuff is expensive.

Considering the evidence, I hope this will please you:

This is not a set-up--it is a photograph of how things are legitimately arranged (when not torn apart by a certain grabby-hands baby). I swear.

Love,

Jacqui

Twice

Dear Jacqui,

Well, I guess I posted it twice... once for me, once for you (if you insist!)

I certainly wasn't suggesting that you look like that when you run... nope  -NOT AT ALL.  I was sending you a little pictorial of myself so you wouldn't miss me too much.

Love, Jen

Dear Jen,

 Exactly.

Did I ever tell you that is precisely the reason it used to be so difficult for me to exercise in public? I was pretty sure all the cars were staring at me and seeing that.

P.S. Two months and counting from the last time I went running. I am officially a failure--and I still think about it a lot. It plagues me. Square one in the spring!