complaints from the memere department

so here I am.

well the news is officially "out" the grandparents have all been notified. we are expecting number 2 May 11th! right now I am about 7 almost 8 weeks. I am feeling like crap. so therefore, my chances of keeping this baby is pretty good. though, with a previous csection, the chances of having a etopic pregnancy and miscarriage is greater. there are also other complications it can cause. I am hoping that none of them happen.
The story is kind of a funny one. I am a "charter" which means I pay attention to my body, which means I know pretty much exactly when this baby was made. sorry if this is TMI, everyone, but deal. anyway, it didn't look very good this month as my temps were all over the map. so I wrote it off and went to Egypt. good time in Egypt and it was a good thing the wine was terrible bc I hardly drank a drop the whole time. well I got home and thought "still nothing, I should test" so, as kind of an afterthought, I tested and ended up with a VERY dark line on the test. the test tests for Hcg levels and it was apparent they were pretty high. okay then. I came out of the bathroom and showed my mother and Doug, who both stared at the test whilest the whole thing came up as a for sure positive. I was completely shocked. Doug said "good work quister" and hugged me. GOOD WORK QUISTER??? that is going to be his line for this baby apparently.
well shortly after I started to feel a bit nauseous. not sure if it was bc I was aware of it now, or bc I was. but regardless, I feel very nauseous it seems like all the time and of course the perpetual exhaustion. but this time I have to chase a 1 year old. who right now is a very sick chick.

Last night she came to bed with me. I can't believe people sign up for this on a long term basis. she kicks me, she wiggles constantly and feels she must be touching me the whole time with some part of her body. it wasn't so not fun. I don't sleep, I don't think she sleeps, but its the only way she won't scream lately. but at about 3 or 4, not sure which, I put her in her own bed. which she slept in until 8am, which is amazing for her. 730 is like the absolute latest usually. she then had breakfast, had a bath she demanded (can't believe my child is demanding baths) and had an almost 2 hour nap. she was BEAT like a stick. her nose is running like a faucet. poor baby. I also got a shower and some zzzzzz's in. that was nice.

She is now blowing kisses to people. pretty cute. she is also trying to bark like a dog. in fact, the other night at around 4, she woke up and went over to Bentley and started barking at him. it was pretty funny. would have been funnier if it was 2pm. sigh.

as well, she is maybe showing signs of wanting to be PTed. she first starting telling us when her diapers were dirty by saying YUCKY or YUCKO. now she has started to bring clean diapers to us when she messes them. pretty much immediately after actually. I guess this a big sign. so I think I am going to at least introduce the potty. but I don't hold a lot of hope. I mean, she is only 17 months and really, there aren't very many kids that are trained at that age. we will see. I am not going to force the issue or anything. what fun this will be. it would be nice to not have 2 in diapers though.

Odds n Ends

Well we arrived home safely, via Frankfurt on Sept 10th. happily, we made it onto the Air Canada flight direct to YYC, though we were stuck in the two middle seats for what felt like an eternity. it was kind of a lame plane actually. but I digress.


A few more stories I neglected to share:
on our trip to Luxor, we were at this alabaster musuem, where its not much of a musuem, and more like a store. there was some gorgeous stuff, but again, tapped of funds so we didn't get a thing. however, while we were there, there was this group of boys that were essentially begging, some of them did not have shoes and kept asking us for candy. then I saw one of them carrying a hypodermic needle! I was freaking out and demanded they give it to me. they did and then they wanted it back. I was like ARE YOU CRAZY?! this thing could have the AIDS virus. and to think of the little barefeet :( I looked at the men, all sitting on the bench and pulled out my best disgusted mother face and said "what are you going to do with this?" I couldn't see any garbages around. they all didn't seem to care, which doesn't surprise me but still bugs me. Doug said you can't get a group of 7 year old boys to do anything you want them to. So some guy came up, took the needle from me and disposed of it, in a trash can readily accessible by the boys. I am sure it was all for show, and I wonder if after I left the boys went and retrieved it. what a STUPID thing to play with. I still can't believe how much trash is around that country laying everywhere.

Doug, I decided, is a freak of nature. the man is completely UNAFFECTED by time changes. The first night, I woke up at 12am, and stayed awake until 7am, and then fell asleep. it progressively got better until about the 6th day when I slept through the night fully. but Doug, OTOH, just slept through the night like he had been in that time zone his whole life. and we are talking about a 9 hour ahead of us difference here. it made me SO MAD. then he tells me JUST LIE THERE AND TELL YOURSELF ITS NIGHTTIME. I told him I AM NOT A FREAK, SORRY. now we are home, and again, he is practically all switched over after the first day.


When we got home, we called from the tarmac and told my parents we were actually HERE and ready to be picked up. it worked out just about perfect, I was super excited to see Kiera and when they pulled up I saw her little face and she recognised me, made this funny face, and barely interacted me the whole car trip. she was MAD MAD MAD and was not afraid to let me know. she was cooing with Doug and chatting happily with him, with me, she let me know. she was giving me the cold shoulder. she was like that for about an hour or so. then she got over it. sort of.

the first night was hard. she was very scared of us leaving her at all, so we ended up sleeping together and have been ever since. I think its a combination of her teeth and fear that is contributing to her crying. nothing like making mum feel REALLY guilty or anything. the first night we got back home, she asked for a bath. she actually SAT DOWN! holy cow! then last night, she went to her room after dinner got her blankey and then proceeded to demand to be rocked in her chair. so we complied. but when Doug tried to put her down, screeching ensued. so I went to bed at 815pm last night. and even then, when Doug tried to take Bentley for a walk, she freaked out. Actually when Doug brought the suitcases up the stairs last night, she freaked out. she is especially clingy and again, nothing like loading on the guilt. sigh. I am not sure how long this will last, but we will just have to deal with it.
over and out.

Luxor

we left yesterday at 445am. ewwwww. it was still dark. It took an hour picking up the others and finally we were on our way. there was 120 buses! 120! To travel on a bus with tourists in Egypt, a military escort is required. anyway, it was a 4 hour drive on this tiny little bus with no leg room for poor Doug.

it was SOOOOOOOOO hot. Apparently, it was only 100, but the guide told us 44C, which is like 110. it was quite disgusting. we went to Valley of the Kings burial site, which is where King Tut was buried, but we had absolutely no money, so we couldn't go. the bank was down, and the Canadian bank restricts me to 100 CDN a day. very frustrating. so we were moneyless. English was also like the third language spoken by our tour guide and made it sound like if we didn't pay extra for this boat trip across the Nile, we wouldn't get to do it. then we found it it was for the return trip, but we had all ready paid. sigh. and spent the last of our funds. but it ended up being a very good trip. The driver of the boat was pretty funny, I kept making motions about crocodiles being in the water, and he said "nnoooooo, crock-e-deals", and later he actually jumped in the water for a swim bc it was so hot. that was pretty funny. he also gave me the handle and let me steer the boat as well for about 5 minutes. I have a picture that I will post. The other people in our group were German and were giving our tour guide a hard time, I guess being very rude, though we missed much of it. when we got to Valley of the Kings the tour guide told us that that German man, who was very gay, a fact I picked up on before I saw him holding his partners hand, and called him a harlot. funny. so the Germans were not allowed on the boat back across the Nile. we were in it with some nice Belgian people who were celebrating their 25th anniversary.
Doug swears he saw a crockedeal. I am not so sure. but there was no way in hades I was climbing in there either.

we also went to this MASSIVE temple early in the morning, whose name is escaping me. I will post pictures of it. I can't imagine how it would have looked a few thousand years ago. It would have been stunning. I was thinking how cool it would be for someone to do computer generated photos of what it would have looked like thousands of years ago. I am sure it was utterly majestic.

So today I finish my shopping. I seem to have misplaced my hat and still hold hopes of finding it. I love that hat. it was SO NICE yesterday and its going to be in all my pictures. it was such a fabulous hat. sigh. I hope I find it.
tomorrow we are off to Cairo at 830am and hope to catch a 445 to Frankfurt. we stay a night in Frankfurt and then we are going to hopefully get on a flight to somewhere in North america on Saturday and make our way back to Calgary. the joys of flying non rev.

short n sweet

Its quite late here and we have an incredibly early show tomorrow. soooo, just another quick update.

I forgot to mention the other night, as soon as I updated the blog, I went back to the hotel and there was a wedding on. I got invited into the wedding, and ended up dancing around the bride and with the bride. of course. this is me you know. I came and took lots of pictures and met the most BEAUTIFUL baby I have ever seen, excluding one of course :) I got her pic and will post it when I get back.
When we arrived we went to this show thing called "Fanatasia" it was a wee bit long, but an all right show. it consisted of belly dancing and this other kind of dancing. anyway, the dancers were all standing in the entrance when you came in, and they invited me to dance with them. do I did:) I ended up imitating the "lead" dancer and having a great time. We also attracted a lot of attention. I didn't notice, I was concentrating much too hard on my hip moves. I have pics of that too, though not very good ones.

Today we went snorkelling and it was a good time for Doug and notsomuch for me. The wind was really high, the current really strong and to boot the mask was not sealing. everytime I stuck my face in the water, it filled up with water. It happened with 2 masks, on my 3rd it worked but I was very tired and ready to scream with frustration. that and this worker, who was helping me, also decided to cop a few cheap feels. not anywhere super inappropriate, but I am really sick of this attitude that all western women are sluts and they are somehow entitled to this. even if Doug is RIGHT THERE they still hit on me. it makes me SO MAD. So I swam away from creepy man after a short time and back to the boat. Doug did catch some good pics though, which is good.

off to Luxor tomorrow WAY to early.
C

The Red Sea

Is very beautiful. we have a stunning view, which I will post when I get home, just out of our window.

We arrived at the resort and shelled out 450US for the "all inclusive" package. let me just state, for the record, that we will never do this again. I thought when it was "all inclusive" that that would mean there would be a restaurant and you could have whatever you wanted. but in fact, every single meal is a huge buffet and I am guessing there are around 500 guests here. its crazy. completely insanely busy. the food sucks too. it might look pretty, but is rather bland. it was suppose to include "water sports" but to get out a windsurfing board you must pay 50 Euros EACH to be "certified" what a joke. the people that are staying here, Doug calls Euro trash. many rude Russians and everyone is unfriendly. we have no made friends with a single other couple in the place. the most friendly are actually the Arabs. we are most displeased with the resort and the amount of money we are spending to be here. Last night we went to this show thingy and even one of the shopkeepers was like "Grand Azur? that is very expensive." no kidding! if we didn't KNOW how cheap everything was here, maybe we wouldn't be so irritated. It just feels like everyone is out to screw you, for lack of a better way to describe it.

Now, the good things. The Arabs who are not out to sell you something, are very friendly. The view is gorgeous. tomorrow we go snorkelling at Paradise Island. but there are some really pretty fish off the coast of the resort. its super warm here. I am the only one who wears a hat. we saw the pyramids. Wednesday we go to Luxor, which apparently is going to be wretchedly hot. There is some super cool stuff to see there, which I am very excited about. today for lunch we are left the resort and I am going to have a shawmer, which is this hot meat off a spit combined with some hummus. hmmmmm, SO SO good. better than resort food.

now I just pray to get home without a problem. also a shout out to the parents, who wired us money as dumb Wells Fargo (sorry Kevin) messed up with the account number and it was sent to the wrong place. it still is not here and we won't see it until Tuesday. we have yet to have a good experience with Wells Fargo, ever. without the parents, we would be completely without funds. so YAY mum and dad. thanks for saving the vacation.
C

Adventures in Cairo

So in case you all didn't know, Doug and I departed NA August 29th to enjoy the sites and sounds of Egypt.
The great part is that we arrived. We left MK with grandparents in YYC and travelled home to overnight. we departed the next morning on a pretty early flight of 7am. I can proudly say I only packed ONE CARRY ON bag. thank you very much.
We flew to Atlanta, then onto Frankfurt with no problems, and were cleared to Cairo early. I couldn't sleep a WINK on the plane, much to my annoyance. niether did Doug really. We were only cleared for coach class and it was SOOOOOO uncomfortable that I didn't sleep. then we were on Lufttanza, and OHMYGOSH, they were so GREAT with service and I stole a whole row of seats to sleep on. and sleep I did. I was pretty much incoherant.

This city is CRAZY. the traffic would make any Westerner gasp with fear. they walk out into the streets, have cars whiz by them and keep going. there are lanes, but no one pays attention, and they have traffic lights but no one follows them. I thought Jerusalem was bad, but this place makes it look positively sane. It is 25 million people, with 1 million people adding every 10 months. I guess there is a baby born every 23 seconds. any references I have made to my trip to Israel thus far have been met with a deafening silence. I told our guide how I bargained in the market, and how I got screwed on prices of things. he said "those Jews" and I said "actually it was all Palestinians I was dealing with, they drive a hard bargain" end of conversation.
I really get STARED at here, in spite of Doug. my hair is uncovered,, but today I wore a skirt and a tanktop and my giant hat. its not as bad. I am quite agitated though and thought about finding a scarf just so these men who are SO RUDE will stop staring at me. Its so irritating to me that they think they can stare just bc I am a Western woman. patriarchy at its best.
Someone picked us up at the airport and told us it was 20US each for our visa. we found out they were really 6US!!! funny. I am not sure whose wheels he had to grease either to get them. my first experience with Cairo traffic was when I walked out with my luggage, this car was racing down the lane and didn't look like he was going to stop. I ran. it freaked me out, but that was nothing.

Our guide took us to the hotel. which I will take a picture of, and its al right. but European standards, very nice. it has two twin beds and is clean right on the pool and AC. that is a start. Then he offered to take us tothe light show of the pyramids, which we thought would be fun. so we went and got "seated" at the restaurant. they asked if we wanted drinks, and we ordered a beer and wine. the wine was SO AWFUL I couldn't even FINISH IT. Neither could Doug, who drinks almost anything. Right before we went, our guide took us to this smoke shop, where Doug and I smoked this water pipe thing, I will post a pic when I get home. Doug also drank this crazy VERY strong coffee which I couldnt stomach.
I also tried to bargain with the guy as well. Since it was not included, I figured I would start at half and go from there. he gave us 5 off, which isn't too bad, though I felt a bit bad about it as I should have done it before we left. but I was really too tired.

This morning, we went back to the pyramids/tombs and saw them in the daylight it was very cool. We even went on a camel ride, went into the tomb, which was clausterphobic and cameras were not allowed, and went to Cairo museum. we also went shopping, but you all will have to wait until Christmas to hear about that ;) but suffice to say, we bought stuff that I am quite pleased with.

now I am going to go to bed as its almost 10 here. I think we have a early morning and we are off to our resort. its too bad really, we didn't see everything to be seen.
C