My hot Oscar date

Another Oscar night has come and gone, but this year I actually had myself a hot date (see photo)!

Yeah, my little man doesn't like to go to bed too early, so he and I watched the gala event together for the first few hours. He seemed to take my gown and heels in stride, and was obligingly quiet during the important awards. He didn't make fun of me for dressing up, didn't tsk tsk me for drinking three glasses of champers and best of all, he didn't mooch any appetizers. Best. Date. Ever!

I know it's a little silly to get all dolled up just to watch a bunch of Hollywooders fawn all over each other, but I don't care. We all need a little silly in our lives now and then. And I am so thankful to be feeling healthy enough to WANT to put on a dress and have a drink that Oscar night this year was extra giddy, and extra special.

Cheers!

In sickness and in health...but mostly in sickness!

Fighting this wretched c difficile bacteria hasn't been a pleasant experience to say the least. Some days - okay, most days! - I've been an absolute mess of anxiety, worry, guilt and fear. I honestly don't know what I would have done without my steadfast husband, my encouraging sisters and my amazing mother-in-law, who have all taken turns steadying me when I felt I was about to crash, nurturing me and loving me without fail. My friends - especially the newer ones I've made up here through my Mums' group - have been unfailingly supportive. They send me daily email check-ins and offer help every time. Thank God for family. Thank God for friends.

Having been very ill for over four weeks now has given me lots to think about. There isn't much else to do when you're fighting near-constant nausea, the shakes and lethargy and have been confined to bed for most of the day. Sometimes one's brain goes in some pretty dark places, but there are also moments of sanity-preserving clarity that I am deeply grateful for. Here are a few that come to mind:

1. Sometimes it's only when you are at your most vulnerable that you discover how much you are loved. When I'm feeling really sick, and I have absolutely nothing to offer, my husband still makes me feel beautiful and beloved. He and my sisters can still make me laugh. My mother-in-law is still thrilled to see me and the kids, even when I spend the entire day moping on her couch or dozing in her guest bed. It is an experience that both swells my heart and humbles me.

2. Be thankful for the things that are going right. My kids are healthy. My husband is healthy. My mother-in-law is recovering well from her recent surgery. I have a doctor who takes me seriously and listens to my concerns. I live in a country where medicine is readily available. My house is warm and snug; we have a fridge full of nutritious food, even though I can't eat it! The sun sparkles on the snow, even though I can't ski in it. My daughter's laughter is as wild as ever; my son greets me with a smile every morning, even though I haven't been able to spend as much time with them as I want to. My husband's arms are warm and safe at night, and he holds me tight when I am too weak to reach out for him myself.

3. Give yourself permission to be sick. This is the best advice a doctor has ever given me, but the hardest advice to actually follow. I have been overwhelmed with guilt - the house is a mess! I look terrible! My kids are going to get disconnected from me! My husband must be going crazy and wish he didn't marry such a weak woman! - but I am learning, very gradually, to try and let go of the guilt and just face the fact that I. Am. Very. Sick. Period. The hardest thing for me has been to accept the idea that I may need to lie in bed for another few weeks and rest, and to give myself permission to do so. I'm talking excrutiatingly hard! But really, what choice do I have?

4. Find your happy place. Like I said before, the mind can go to some pretty dark and disturbing places when your body is failing. I'm teaching myself to acknowledge the darkness, then steer my brain into some happier thoughts. A counsellor once taught me to create a vision of a "safe place" and use it to combat anxiety, so I use the original one I created all those years ago: it's a warm summer night. The sky is scattered with stars. I walk down a sandy beach path into a clearning beside the water; there's a small bonfire burning and a large log beside it where my Babushka sits, waiting for me to join her. I've also created several new ones - my husband and I gently sway in a hammock on a deserted beach in Hawaii; my husband and I hold hands on a porch, watching our adult children and small grandchildren play a game of soccer on the front lawn of Someday; I'm driving the mountain highway towards Banff, where I'll spend a week writing. They are strangely comforting and help keep me grounded when my mind wants to think terrible things.

5. Be brave. Not much else to say, really. (0:

The winter of my discontent

Holy. Crap.

It's been over a month since my last bloggy post, and you wanna know why? Because I have been living in a house of plagues for the entire winter!

Not to bore you with a litany of our illnesses, but check this out: Jade had bronchitis, tonsillitis and a variety of colds. Dylan was (mis)diagnosed with urinary tract infection. D recently got whomped with a wicked bout of the flu (in 5 years, I've never seen my man toss his cookies before, so watching the usually healthy one in our family retch his guts out for 12 hours was an eye-opener). And yours truly had bronchitis, mastitis, a cold and finally a bacterial infection that's beaten me down to a shadow of my former self. I'm thinking of marketing it as the C difficile weight-loss programme.

As a family, we've been in and out of emerg, different hospitals for tests and the doctor's office more times than I can count since October. It's been horrendous. And yet...I know that though we've had rough luck, we haven't had to deal with anything life-threatening or incurable. So I am trying to count my snotty, pukey, nauseous blessings in between doses of anti-biotics, piles of crumpled tissues and empty gatorade bottles. In the shadow of things like Haiti, close friends who have recently lost loved ones and relatives who have been in wheelchairs for nearly a decade, our misery is negligible.

Here's to a stronger, healthier 2011. Wishing you blessings and good health, my bloggy friends.

The stinky things in life

One of the things I love - and sometimes loathe - about my lovin' hubby is how opposite we are in many ways. A relationship of opposites can be disastrous, but ours works. When it comes to politics, money, childcare and the merits of Prince's music, we don't always agree. We do, however, share the same taste in jokes; otherwise I never would have married him. Sharing a sense of humour is deadly serious in my book.

The fact that D and I are ofen on the polar opposite sides of an issue is never more apparent than when I cook certain foods. For example, I can predict with some measure of accuracy what he will say when he walks in the door tonight: "Geez Kim, it smells strong in here. (sniffs the air suspiciously) It smells like....(wrinkles nose)...geez, it smells like onion. (a dramatic pause) I hate onion."

My response has already been rehearsed: "Yes, darling. I know. I've cut up ONE onion and ONE (a slight lie) clove of garlic to make the stew you will later rave about. Trust me."

I come from a Russian heritage where onion and garlic figure predominantly in every meal except for breakfast. My Babushka ate garlic every day of her life and she lived to be 96. Even my Dad, a non-russkie, eats raw garlic almost every day. But D hates onion. And garlic. And cilantro. And goat cheese. All those delicious, smelly things that make my culinary life complete.

So to perserve marital harmony, I don't make him eat raw onion very often, or raw garlic ever. I keep the cilantro separate when I make fajitas, and sprinkle heaps of goat cheese on my salad, but never on his. I do continue to cook with the other unmentionables, because it would be sacrilige to make a beef stew without onion or borscht without garlic. And there are very few meals he's ever made a negative comment about; I've lucked out in that department - the man eats everything I ever put in front of him!

So anyway, tonight is Easy Beefy Stewy night. It's redolent with aromas and your kitchen will stink to high heaven after you're done chopping up the smellier ingredients. But your tummy will thank you. Just like my husband will thank me after he's eaten his 3rd bowlful.

Easy Beefy Stewy
Ingredients
3 tbsp olive oil
1 lb stewing beef, cut into bite sized chunks
1/4 cup flour, seasoned with salt and pepper and paprika
1 medium onion, chopped
2 rib celery, chopped
2 carrots, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups broth
1 cup red wine
1 bay leaf

1. Toss beef with seasoned flour to coat.
2. Heat oil in a heavy pot and brown beef lightly.
3. Add onion and celery; cook 3 minutes.
4. Add sliced carrots, garlic, broth, wine and bay leaf.
5. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer covered for 1 hour, or until beef is tender. Serve over orzo.

In Praise Of....Naps

Ah, the nap. One of my favourite mid-life discoveries. I was too energetic, antsy and - let's face it - caffeine fueled to appreciate the art of napping until I hit my 30's; now that I'm in my 41st year, I find that napping is one of those under appreciated pleasures I simply cannot live without.

To those of you who might say that napping's not an art, or that it's a luxury few can afford, I acknowledge that the pursuit of the perfect nap is not unlike the pursuit of the perfect cup of coffee: elusive and often disappointing, but oh so satisfying when you do find it.

To me, a really good nap has to be unplanned. It's not something you thumb into your BlackBerry calendar or block off on your day planner. A truly gratifying nap can only occur when you stumble upon a block of time in your day that you suddenly realize can in fact be sacrificed to the gods of slumber.

A nap should be at least 20 minutes long. But snore for longer than an hour and you'll wake up feeling more sloggy than refreshed. Snoozing should enhance your evening sleep, not supplant it. But the 20 minute thing is what makes napping so accessible. We can all find 20 minutes in our day. We just have to be willing to look for it, and sacrifice it on the altar of sleep.

I don't think you have to have kids to fully appreciate the restorative powers of a good nap, but it helps. After Jade came along, I quickly learned that crusty dishes, mountains of laundry, dust elephants and full email inboxes all paled in comparison to a snooze on the couch with her nestled snugly on my chest. I couldn't have survived the long nightly nursing sessions without those treasured daily naps. Baby Dylan's arrival has helped me rediscover the beauty of a good sleep, housework be damned! When I spy him snoring away with his arms thrown over his head in that utterly vulnerable, utterly content way only children have, I remember the inherent pleasure of a good nap and lay down beside him to partake of some zzzzs.

There's a good deal of guilt one has to overcome in order to perfect the art of napping. In this age of addictive social networking, high self-expectations and super-parenting, it's hard to stay offline, pursue a career, keep the house looking beautiful and dream up new ways to educationally entertain your kids. Naps? Ha! Those are for lonely, lazy people! Underachieving slackers! People who don't eat right or work out enough! Right?

Well, all I can tell you is that even on my most energetic days, naps have saved my sanity countless times and become a simple act of self-preservation. I come up with some of my most creative ideas as I'm drifting off to happy nappy land. I'm a better spouse and mother when I've taken that precious time out of my day to recharge. Trust me: napping is more than just an art we should all attempt to master. It's a life preserver in our hectic, scary-busy sea of life.

Welcome Autumn! No - wait - don't go yet - wait! WAIT UP!

I don’t know if it’s a farmer thing, a country thing, or just one of his lovely little quirks, but around the first week of July, my husband looks out the window with a mournful sigh and says, “Well, Kimmy, summer’s almost over.”
We were zooming down a concession road the first time I heard my husband say this. It was a glorious sunny day; the wheat was yellow, the sky was blue, the trees were green. I looked at him suspiciously. “Are you nuts? Summer’s barely begun!”
Another big sigh from my man. “Look at that field over there.” I looked. The wheat rippled under the unseen hand of the wind. “When the wheat begins to turn gold, that’s how you know summer’s almost over.”

At the time, I thought my husband was pulling my city girl leg, so I rolled my eyes and ignored him. But after hearing this doleful mantra every July for the past five years, I’ve come to accept the fact that the seasons really do change a little differently up here in the country.

I looked out the window the other day and realized with some surprise that not only was it autumn, but that autumn was already making way for the bluster of winter. When the heck did that happen?

Our newest addition, six-week-old Dylan, has a penchant for 3am partying. This has taken a toll on my ability to notice the world around me, let alone what's going on in the next room. I haven't taken in my solar lamps, dug up my garden or planted my bulbs; in fact, there aren't any leaves left on most of the trees and I don't even recall seeing them fall off. I feel a bit disappointed, because watching the seasons change is one of my favourite parts of living in the country.
During the ten years that I lived there, autumn announced its arrival in Waterloo by turning the giant sugar maple in my backyard a ravishing shade of scarlet. City gardens, once resplendent with their displays of frilly annuals, started to wither, and elaborate leafy wreaths began appearing on doorsteps. Even if I’d missed all these signs, getting stuck behind big yellow school buses on my way home from work was a dead giveaway that the season was changing.

Of course, trees turn colour and school buses zip by in the country, too. But somehow, up here there seem to be even more poignant signals that autumn has arrived. The lake loses its serene turquoise hue and becomes a fitful sapphire blue. Robins gobble every last orange berry off my ash tree, leaving it stark naked. Poplar trees shiver and show the bright white backsides of their leaves when chilly breezes tickle them. Squirrels from over the hill risk suicide to scamper across the road and steal corn, black walnuts and chestnuts from our place. And ads for fall fairs and country bazaars start popping up in the newspapers and on grocery store bulletin boards.

The arrival of cooler weather is always a relief to me, no matter where I'm living. This year I’m even more thankful to finally notice autumn has descended upon the Bruce after the unbearably hot summer I suffered through, heavily pregnant and busy chasing an exuberant sixteen month old. And with the return of cooler weather, I've experienced a renewed urge to cook slow, hot meals: borscht, chicken chili, tuscan bean and bacon stew, carrot and potato soup. There's something so cosy about chopping vegetables and concocting something steamy while looking out the kitchen window on a stark fall landscape. And it's immensely satisfying to hear my husband, that lover of summer and barbecues and hot weather, say "Kimmy, you make the best soup I've ever tasted." (That's right people: even better than his mother's! There is no higher cooking compliment, in my book.)

My bulbs may not get planted this year, and my garden gnomes and lanterns will likely taste a hint of frost before I find the time to safely stow them away in the garage, but Jade and I managed to get our pumpkins and 'mums in place just in time for Hallowe'en. And we've got a few more weeks to breathe in the crisp, leaf-scented air on our walks before winter knocks on our door with a frosty hand.
Summer might be over more quickly in the country, but the advantage is that I feel as though autumn envelops me completely. At Someday, I’m surrounded by the season instead of simply observing it through my windows. Well, I’m sure I’ll feel that way again next year when life isn’t a happy blur of nursing and diapers.

Welcome James Dylan Edward Lowry!

Well, I guess the poor wee man really was feeling squished and cramped in mum's belly, because my water broke at 12:30am on Sept 19th - a few days shy of my planned C-section on the 22nd. You can imagine the look on our faces. And then...the contractions began. EEEEK!

After a quick check up with my doc at Kincardine hospital, D raced us - and I mean RACED us - to Grand River Hospital in K-W (setting a brilliant new speed record from Kink-KW of 63 minutes - go D!). My labour had progressed significantly, but luckily we had a crafty nurse in our corner and got to go ahead with the C-section as planned.

The marvellous Dr. Anstett delivered our boy at 4:19am on Sept 19th. Dylan weighed 7lbs 2oz and was 20 inches long. He came out sporting furry little shoulders, long monkey toes, a black eye, bruises on his head, a cauliflower ear and a squashed nose. No wonder it felt like I had a kick-boxer inside me this past month. He's gonna be a fighter, folks!

Apart from his various beauty marks, a 12 hour session under "the lights" to combat jaundice, and being called the "no-name baby" by the nurses for 3 days, our Little Fellow was in excellent form by the time we packed up to go home on Wednesday.

It took us a while to pick a name...but we both kind of thought we were having another girl! We finally decided on James after D's father and brother, Dylan because it means "son of the wave" (we do live near the lake, after all), and Edward after my Dad and D's great-grandfather.

D has this week off which is wonderful, as my recovery from surgery has been a a bit trying, especially with crazy Jady Lady bouncing around. She seems to like her brother so far and has added yet another word to her ever-growing repertoire: "Bayyyyybeeee!"

Thanks to my bloggy friends for your support and kindness during my pregnancy and all your well wishes for Dylan. Now the tough part begins - sleepless nights and breastfeeding blues - along with the blissful moments of baby love, floppy cuddly afernoons and all the "firsts." Wee D smiled on his second day in the world, so I think he's destined to be a happy little fellow.