Wow, what a week. It started off with a bang - knowing that we had our long weekend/2nd Christmas trip to Kingston starting this Thursday, I had about a million things on the 'to do' list for the week. And how did I get the week started? By busting up my back!
So here's a handy tip for all our readers out there - when you sneeze, don't turn your head. It puts all this strain on some muscle that I can't remember the name of, that runs from your neck down to your ribs. I learned this the hard way - standing there changing Maddie at 8am, I had the sneezes, and kept turning my head to the right to let these monster sneezes out. After I was all done sneezing, my nose was dripping, and while stretching my right arm above my head, I did an almighty
sniff and all of a sudden my neck/back/shoulder seizes up. Luckily Maddie was still on the change table (at waist height) so I didn't have to bend to lift her - I carried her into the bedroom and deposited her down onto our bed (the first time I think I was thankful for our mammothly tall bed). As she was getting hungry, I knew this was going to get tricky and my back was continuing to spasm - yikes. I called Seth and left a desperate message on his phone and managed to get myself laid down beside Maddie to feed her before she really freaked out.
Seth called back a few minutes later, and I think, hearing the panic in my voice, made the decision to leave work (on a Monday morning - their busiest time) and come to help me, as I honestly didn't know what I was going to do - I had finished feeding Maddie at this point, and laid down on the bed on my side, could now not get up. Nightmare.
Luckily, while Seth was making the hour drive back home, I was able to 'shush' Maddie to sleep while I laid there in agony, using my labour-breathing-techniques to get myself through the pain of my seizing back muscles. Once Seth got home it took us almost an hour to get me up off the bed and into the bath (which I also learned is a bad bad thing to do for pulled muscles - ice people, you should use ice, not heat). Anyways, to make a long story short, I lounged in the bath trying to feel a bit better while Seth took care of Maddie and called his mom to ask her to come up and help around the house for a couple of days. Thankfully she was able to and she was at our house by 2pm taking care of Maddie, and Seth was on his way back to work.
I was able to get myself in for a last minute appointment with a Chiropractor here in Whitby that afternoon - and he actually really helped to get me on the road to recovery. I can say that I'm now a big believer in Chiropractors - the cracking of the back is still very weird, but I felt tonnes better even after just one appointment - really!
So the rest of the week I took it pretty easy while Debbie helped out tonnes with cooking and taking care of Maddie. I managed to get the rest of the Christmas shopping done (for my family Christmas we were attending that weekend) and get us prepared for our road trip. We left Thursday afternoon and were in Kingston by 2pm - Maddie slept the whole way - such a sleeper! Since Thursday was my bday, my mom came over that evening to visit us and we all had some cake - good times.
Friday was an early morning as we had plans to be at Stef's (in Inverary) by 10am - we visited with her and her little one, Quinn for a few hours that morning. Maddie had a blast watching Quinn play with all her toys (he loved the Glo-worm especially!) - here's a pic of me and Stef with our little ones. Quinn is 9 months and huge, especially next to our tiny little Madds - she looks extra tiny in this pic!
After leaving Stefanie's we headed over to my Dad's place where we visited for several hours and exchanged Christmas gifts. Maddie started to get pretty tired (and cranky) so we headed out around 5pm. We got to Debbie & Shorty's by 5:45 and after feeding Maddie, we let Grandma do some babysitting while we went out for a dinner on our own for my birthday. Ended up downtown at Megalo's - a restaurant that used to be one of our faves, across from the theatre. Dinner was good - we had a few seafood dishes and (with the exception of the paper napkins) it was really nice. Too bad when we got home Maddie was having a bit of a fit. Apparently she was good all evening and started to cry just 5 minutes before we got home. I wasn't too bothered as it only took me a couple of minutes to calm her down, but I think Seth was a little disturbed, he just kept saying "I've never heard that cry before." Oh well, I guess we have to realize that she is going to cry sometimes and while we won't like it, it's not always going to be something we can avoid. Especially when we're not around.
The next day was our big Christmas get together with my family - Mom, Walt, Aunt Reta, Derek, Amy and their 2 little ones. So we of course had to Maddie all dressed up for the occasion. Here she is in the crib at Grandma Vallier's right before we left - don't you just love the boots?
We picked up an ice cream cake and headed out to my Aunt Reta's in Harrowsmith for the festivities. Gifts were exchanged, I playe
d with my nieces a tonne with some of their new toys, and of course we all ate until we were ready to explode on all the nibbles and appetizers that Aunt Reta and Mom made. Maddie got a little cranky a few times, but hey this was her 4th major visit in 2 days so she was getting a little tired of all the attention I think. How priceless is this pic though, with her cousin Rebecca ...
We decided that we were going to head back to Brooklin that night instead of waiting for Sunday morning - so with a quick visit in with the Vallier's and one last stop at my Mom's house, we were back on the road and home by just after 1am. Thank goodness Maddie was out for the count and didn't wake up when we took her out of her carseat and into bed.
It was a great weekend and we enjoyed visiting everyone, but it was tiring for all of us - especially Madds. She's been sleeping a tonne ever since!
S&S
Anyways - before bday party #1 we hit up Pingles for some good ol' pumpkin-pickin'-out. There's tonnes of other things (tractor rides, corn mazes, face painting) that you can partake in - but yeah, like I said, we were on our way places and Miss M was a wee bit grumped out.
