a hippie with a minivan

Wow… I don’t write often….

Well Xavier’s Birthday was great and we had a lot of fun out in the country and by the lake… we swam, and built sand castles and laughed and had a great time…

The boys had a blast and the party was great too… Xavier loved his Pirate ship and his Pirate treaure box and they are sure to be keepers and played with for many more hours and years to come…

Simon has been on vacation this past week which has been great… Last Tuesday I started having a headache and it kept me up all night… by morning it has not gone and I was having trouble functioning…. I have had headaches before, I have had bad headaches before… I have never had something like this… It was a Migrane and it was so awful…Â I am not one to lay down in my room ion the middle of the day but by after lunch I couldn’t handle it anymore… I laid down with an ice pack on my head… drifting in and out of sleep and tatally in pain… Wednesday night I was able to come out of my room, but I had another rough night… in the morning it started leaving finally….relief…

For the next few days I had to fight it off every morning with a bit of tylenol… I hate taking meds but I had to stop it in its tracks before it started again… I don’t want to risk it… I never want to have one of those again…
I just wish that my chiro wasn’t on Vaccation… I am definately going to talk about it next week…

Besides that… babe is moving tons, I love putting my hand on my belly and feeling the kicks and movements….the pregnancy is doing well, nothing really out of the ordinary, everything looks and feels great… I don’t have much energy lately but I think that is a bit normal… With a bad cold a few weeks ago and then that headache last week my body just needs to recouperate and get back on track…

Simon is off this week too so again it helps… I love having him home…

Well here are a few pics from the weekend up north… (and here are more pics on Flickr)

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Away for the weekend…

Well, It will be Xavier’s Fourth Birthday on Sunday and we had planned a small party. We had extended the invite to friends and a few family members. Mostly we wanted some kids around to share the day with Xavier. This is of course one of the birthdays that he may very well remember…

However, people just couldn’t make it so it ended up that we had just our parents and our good friend Yan… Not really much of a birthday and really I think it would be more tention than anything else…

Early this week Simon got an E-mail from his best friend Martine inviting us over to her cabin with the company of her brother, her mom and grandmother… Martine is a very good friend and we love to be in her company and her family is amazing too… So we decided to reschedule the party here and bring it over there… I was a bit worried that the cake would not be able to be ready for our departure today but I went and ordered it yesterday and there was no problem… We will be bringing his presents….and will be having a party… His big present is this and he will be getting a Playmobil Pirate ship and all the pieces that I found last year for 2-3$(we will give it when we get back since it has a lot of small peices)… another little playmobil pirate, a little rolling car stamp set, a grow-a-head and a Honey-Bee Tree Game…

The kids and I were sick this week but only for a day each but I am finally getting over it… though it it is not gone completely yet…Â My nose was stuffy and my throat hurt, had a fever and I had a lot of trouble with my asthma and had to take my pump often… Now I having gunk coming out and my throat is really raw but at least it is all coming out and today my throat is better then yesterday…

So, we are off for the weekend… to swim, to look for frogs, to have have fun with friends, to roast marshmallows and share good times… I can’t believe that Xavier is going to be four… and that in two days I will be nursing a 4 year old… Wow…

Well the decision has been made for me…

I had not called the birthing center yet, I was still debating it and pretty much just not thinking of it… Well, this morning they called me to see what was happening… I talked to the head midwife and told her that I really wanted to have a homebirth and that I was wondering if I could go for just a few appointments… She said that it takes up too much time and resources and they wil not take me if I am not planning to give birth there…So the decision has been made for me… I will not be seeing a midwife at all, I am in my own care for the pregnancy and birth.

I feel the need to get things in order before the birth too… I still have time but I want to have all of the paperwork and everything ready so that I have no running around to do after. I think that I will need to go see someone to get a signature to confirm that I was indeed pregnant… and then the other stuff I just need to figure out how it all works…

There are two alternative birthing resource centers in Montreal that give info on birthing, give Doula info etc and that could probably help me figure out what to do but they are both closed until late August… so for now, I will just keep growing the babe, keep an eye on how I am feeling and start prepaing things for the birth…

I went to a few “Devil stores” (Walmart) to see if they had the fishy kiddie pool (since all of the other stores don’t have any) and it seems that they don’t carry kiddie pools anymore but just the bigger temporary pools… weird… or maybe I was just too late in the season…. So I am still concidering the “La Bassine” pool…

All in all, I am looking forward to my UC… I can’t wait to labour at home and just let things progress normally and naturally in my own surroundings, in the place I know and feel the most comfortable in…

x-posted in my pregnancy journal

update on the picnic…

Well, the picnic and the day at the beach turned out to be a lot of fun…

The fellow MDC mamma was really cool and her kids are so cute… Xavier and her older dd had a lot of fun and I saw Xavier interact with another ids in a way the he rarely does… I think because of the lack of language barriers Xavier was really able to be himself, talk and be understood…

When we are with friends here in the area Xavier understands them but because he doesn’t speak much french… or is too shy or whatever to speak french he responds in english and they don’t understand him and that makes him frustrated and then often he just goes and plays in a corner..

That day he really played and talked and was himself… It was great…

Picnic and the beach…

Well, today will be the first time that I meet someone from the net… A fellow MDC mamato be exact… she lives near Sherbrooke which is about 2 hours away so we decided to meet half way in Drummondville and when checking what was there and what possibilities we had I noticed that there was a public beach… so we decided that a Picnic at the beach would be great…

So I am getting together a great lunch and snacks for the day (I love picnics)

So the menu is

Sandwiches on some multigrain baguettes,
rice balls (sticky rice rolled in a toasted sesame salt) with a Soy Wasbabi dipping sauce.
Marshmallow squares with rice krispies, wheat germ, oatmeal and raisins,
Carrot sticks and an avocado (Colin’s Favorite food)
Apples and Blueberries
And I put some juice packs in the freezer for a little cold treat…

It is an unusually cool day for July here so I am not sure how much swimming we will do but the boys are tough and I know that the sand will be a hit! I don’t have many things for sand play so I am going to stop by the dollar store before getting on the road so that the boys will be able to make sand castles and haul sand from one place to another…

There is also a slight chance of rain but 30% isn’t enough IMO to make us not go… So I am off to get ready… I am pretty excited to meet her and her kids… and I find it cool that I will be meeting a fellow MDC mama….