More kids means less sleep and more sickness

Lately I feel like I’m always complaining about something. I really don’t mean to and honestly my life is pretty fantastic. But it always seems like there is something going on and I’d love to just have a stretch where I don’t get woken up at night and everyone in our house is healthy.

There were colds where people couldn’t breath at night, there was a migraine so severe we were at out patients on an IV. From there we moved into a kid with chicken pox.

Now yesterday it seems like the flu has hit our house. After last night I got thinking of this video a friend shared the other day.

The part that really hits home with me is it seems like there is always one of them that is getting up in the night. If it isn’t one of the kids the cat decides to have a turn and throw up on things to wake us up.

I’ll end as I started though I really do love my life and family, I just wish I wasn’t sick and could sleep at night.

Discovery Centre Fun Day

We had a great family day in Halifax today. The Discovery Centre has a couple new exhibits set up that we hadn’t been to yet so that was our destination today in between shopping stops.

One of the new parts was a Sherlock Holmes mystery. They had eight chapters to the storey, each with their own clues and rooms. You had to walk through and try to figure out the crime. Maybe it is all the games of clue we’ve been playing but the kids really liked it. We might not be the best detectives though as we missed a couple pieces in the beginning that would have helped us solve it.

We always have fun even at the usual displays. I have to be careful when we go here though as they have a great Lego section and I could likely kill a lot of time there.

Alexandria took a spin in the chair.

Ella and I had fun building our own roller coaster.

I don’t care what you call her

We were in Costco today and Noah saw someone he knows from school. It’s funny because Costco is over an hour away but we almost always run into someone we know. 

As we walked past Noah said “Hi Lara”

I asked, is her name Laura? 

The store was busy and it was hard to hear. 

No Lara. 

Laura?

Noah then obviously fed up with me but very politely at the same time says:

You can call her that if you want, but that’s not her name. 

Snow Shoeing

Feeling like I had been trapped in the house too much lately after the stormy weather I finally decided to get out side and do something besides move snow. 

It started by making a quick detour on the way to the grocery store to my favourite walking trail. I didn’t make it far because I was just in jeans and boots but it looked very nice and so I decided to get out a bit more. 

  

Luckily good family friends have snow shoes so Sam and I took a long lunch break and went for a walk through the woods. It was the first time I was really on snow shoes. I was surprised how much of a workout it was. 

It was a beautiful day out and just what I needed. 

   

               

So Much Snow

Pretty confident that the last time we had this much snow was February 2004, in the storm that was dubbed White Juan.

Here’s a few pictures of the front yard so far this month, where’s my bench?

Watching the wind blow around this morning made me try to wait as long as possible before going out to clear the driveway.

It also gave me the idea to set up a webcam looking at the backyard. Not sure how long I’ll keep it up but for now you can see it here: Backyard Cam.

It was still howling when we did get out there, but wanted to at least get the first bit done while it was still light.

The snow at the end of the driveway is now above my head, but the snow blower worked great.

Caile is still not feeling well, the chicken pox have started to crust and hurt her. She’s a trooper though and for the most part staying in good spirits. We’ve watched some TV and some movies. Caile has had a few soaks in an oatmeal bath as they seem to help her.

ClueSo far we’ve played a couple games of Clue. I’m so glad we picked it up. The kids already really like it and so do I. We’re planning another game of it before bed time too.

Here are a few more pictures of the driveway during the storm and it cleared.

Always Something

It really seems like there is just one thing after another that comes along. Just two weeks ago it was poor Alex at the hospital with an awful migraine. Last night it was Caile’s turn to end up there because she had a bumps all over her. It started with just a couple but before long there were many more.

Yup, that’s right the vaccine for chicken pox vaccine doesn’t completely prevent you from getting the disease. Now that I process that I’m sure I knew it at some point but for some reason I had gotten it in my head that it did. Though it isn’t 100% preventative even those who do catch it have milder cases than those without the vaccine. Hopefully as both Jen and I had mild cases anyway she will have a real easy time.

If this had to happen at least it had OK timing as it is a long weekend thanks to the new holiday this year in Nova Scotia. She will miss a Birthday Party and a Wedding but so far she seems OK with that. But now I have a purple shirt I’m wearing to the wedding and won’t have Caile to match with me. But I’ll wear the  shirt anyway because apparently a WordPress hoodie isn’t appropriate.

But other than those things we’ll have a nice quiet weekend with another storm called for on Sunday. I’m predicting lots of games and some movies on the addenda. Jen is out now picking up some things, one of them is hopefully the game of Clue. I haven’t played it in many years but it was always a favourite and I think the kids will like it too.

Things Not Working? Change It Up!

Last week was the first week at Automattic that I was starting to feel stressed and a little burnt out. This weekend I took sometime to try to figure out why, because nothing had changed.

Reflecting back it seems like it was a combination of things. Luckily all the things are in my own control to resolve. The first thing that I changed was that I was obsessing a bit about my stats. Trying to push myself to do better and be more efficient, the funny thing is that this pressure was all coming from me. We all set goals for our selves, I take them very seriously. I try to set reasonable goals but because of that if I don’t hit them it’s disappointing and frustrating.

One of the great things about this position is that I get to make my own schedule. One of the downsides to this position is that I’m responsible for making my own schedule. That sounds dumb but having all those options can make it difficult to find what works best and there is no one else to pass it too, it’s you’re responsibility to make it work. So I really looked at how I was typically spending my day and how I can make it work better for my personable life and be more efficient at work.

In the afternoon my day can be broken up due to picking up kids from school and getting them to where they need to go. So this morning I started with a new approach. I moved my tasks that are better suited for uninterrupted time to the part of the day that is less broken. Today, felt much better again and it flowed really well. Previously I felt like I was working a lot of hours to meet my goals. Where today I met and exceeded my goals and worked a much better portion of my day.

I’ll keep trying this schedule for a bit and hopefully now that it is better organized I can work at just getting more efficient.

Another change I’m working on is becoming a more efficient typist. All of my communication with users and colleagues is done in text, so any improvements I make in this area will have longterm benefits. So I’ve been teaching myself to use the Dvorak keyboard layout. Right now my speed is much slower than it is with QWERTY, but from what I’ve seen the speed will come and my fingers seem to move a lot less. That can only be a good thing my fingers and wrists. Right now I’m only using it during personable time as I’m way to slow to use it at work.

Natural History Museum – Dinosaur Exhibit

We’ve been trying for a while now to find the time on a weekend to get into Halifax to do something fun with the kids and get some errands done at the same time. It seems like there has just been one thing or another get in the way though. There have been a few storms, and last weekend Alexandria was sick.

We waited a bit before we left just to give the roads some time to melt off but besides that we had a smooth day. It was also very cold, but the sun was actually shinning so it was a nice drive. There were a couple shopping stops first, but then on to the Natural History Museum to see the Dinosaur Exhibit which is visiting.

On the way home we made our last stop at Costco. That’s always a fun trip especially on a Saturday afternoon. It helped remind me how much I don’t miss living and commuting in the city. Even short distance drives can take forever because of all the traffic. The one good part of stopping at Costco though is the fact that I was able to sneak away and grab a hot dog without anyone noticing. Because of the time we left we ate an early lunch and I knew that we would end up having a late supper so the hot dog was a smart move.

We still had some left on a gift card from Christmas so we had Swiss Chalet for supper. It’s always a nice treat to not have to cook and clean up after at home. We were even treated with a table side magic show by Al Bernard.

All and all it was a great day spent with my family. It seems like things have been leaning heavy to the work side of the work life balance, so this was a welcome day.

Weekend Emergency Room

Heading out in the middle of a cold, snowy Saturday night to take a child to the emergency room is never a fun thing. Oh wait it’s Sunday morning, I always forget the day changes even if you don’t sleep.

Poor Alexandria seems to be suffering from a migraine, at least that is our best guess based on the symptoms. For a while we thought it might be the flu, or an over reaction to a bad headache. Once 4:00 am rolled around though, and she was still awake and crying in pain, the pain meds we were giving her not seeming to help, it was time to go.

Now we are in a hospital room, her with an IV for pain meds and to replenish her liquids. She’s now dosing in and out of sleep so I’m guessing this is working. I sure hope this takes away her pain, it’s awful watching one of your children and not really be able to do anything to help.

Winter, I’m sorry

Winter I’m sorry. I may have been a little too harsh on you yesterday, because today you are simply beautiful!

I still prefer sand to snow though.