Parenting is comical

After a ridiculously long hiatus from writing on my blog I was at a point trying to decide whether it was something I was going to commit to or give up. The same day I decide to commit to write on my blog twice a week my lovely sister in law Charly sends me this hilarious story about her day. And I thought... What better way to start back up my blog??!?! Hilarious embarrassing parenting story... Check! 

Enjoy!

Parenting story of the day: Decided to give H tons of bath toys tonight so she could have a super bath time experience and also to keep her amused because I had I in the bathroom with me and these days he's a little unpredictable. I set I up in his whale tub with a blanket figuring it would make a good seat for him while H bathed. I grabbed everything I needed Jammie's, diapers, wipes for both kids and thought to myself this is easy I can do this, 2 kids no problem! H was playing for awhile and I was starting to fuss so I started nursing while H played in the bath. Not ideal time to nurse but kinda good because she couldn't go anywhere. Then I see H releasing little fart air bubbles into the bath. I had just said to her moments before that her belly looked pretty full so I figured she was gassy. We discussed her tooting for a minute as she repeated the word tooting to me and giggled as though she just discovered that farting especially farting in the tub was now funny. I reminded her not to poop in the tub and then quicker than I could have anticipated H got into a squatting position and loads of little poop cannons shot their way into her clean bath water. Totally unprepared to do anything but watch it happen because I was cozily nursing in my arms. H stood up said she was done and then quickly wanted to depart her now poop filled tub. I abruptly ended I's feeding and told him sorry buddy gotta take care of this (thankfully i sensed he knew something was up because he just looked at me bright eyed and sweet with a no problem Mommy I'll wait look) so I grabbed H and told her to go grab a book while I played a game of dodging poop cannons and fishing out all of H's gazillion toys. 

I successfully fished out her toys and hit the plug dreading the next step because I'd actually have to manage the poop. I looked over at H and she was super content looking at a book and I stared at me dreamily happy with his semi-milk coma. 

I drew my attention to the draining tub and started catching the poop cannons with a cup. I did a quick check back at H and I and that's when I saw H squatting again with a book on the floor in front of her with a puddle growing by the second. My mistake entirely, I should have known better than to leave her free without a diaper but I was a little distracted by the state of my bathtub. I grabbed a towel threw it under her, chucked her book away from the quickly approaching pee puddle and gave her bottom half a good wipe down with a wipe since putting her back in the tub wasn't an option at the moment. Put her diaper on, washed the floor and we were back to the poop business. The tub had entirely drained so my only option was to physically touch the poop cannons. I'd be lying if I didn't say it made my stomach turn a bit each time I held a nugget in my hand (with toilet paper) to transfer it to the toilet. 

I sprayed down the tub once they'd all been retrieved and brought to their proper home- the toilet! Order restored! I got H dressed, hair brushed. Awe crisis averted. I had H play while I dressed I in his Jammie's. Then I sat down to start feeding I starting to relax and then he vomited on me. I guess I should have burped him before abruptly putting him down. I feel so sexy right now :)

Moral of the story: Parenting is comical. 

Lol yes it is Charly

Lotsa love,
Natasha 

Infertility Profile

With the win a baby contest through The New Hot 89.9, this year has definitely been a crazy whirlwind of interviews and press requests. We had to be selective with who we wanted to share our story and lives with, some requests we declined and others we gladly accepted. One in particular, Kelly Kent, won me over and ended up creating a profile on me and infertility for her school project at Algonquin college. After meeting with me and talking to my family friends she created a wonderful profile that brought tears to my eyes. I thought I would share her amazing work with you, my peeps. Hope you enjoy!

Infertility 
By
Kelly Kent  


 Thanksgiving is a time to get together with family and friends to relax, laugh and stuff yourself full of good food. It is supposed to be a time to treat yourself, to gather your thoughts and to recharge before the long and stressful Christmas season.

 This was not the case for Natasha Derouchie and her family this past Thanksgiving weekend.

 No, for them it was a weekend spent texting, calling and emailing friends, family, friends of family and friends of friends. It was spent behind some sort of screen, desperately posting links and spreading the word. Each member of the gathering was totally engrossed in a laptop or a Smartphone, voting over and over again for Couple A. 

The fact that it was also Natasha’s 30th birthday weekend did little to calm nerves or cut tension and only a small amount of celebrating took place. 

Each member of Natasha’s tight-knit group of supporters was nearly sick to their stomach with anticipation, anxiously awaiting an announcement that could change their lives forever.

 Finally, on Tuesday, Oct. 11 the past-due broadcast was made.  Local radio station, Hot 89.9, broke the news that Natasha Derouchie, 30, and her husband Ryan Derouchie, would be given the chance they have been waiting for since they first met eight years ago—they would be given the chance to have a baby of their very own.

 That was the day Natasha and Ryan discovered they were one of five lucky couples to receive the grand prize of the controversial radio contest: Win a Baby. Each couple will receive up to three in vitro fertility treatments, valued at over $30,000.

 For Natasha, Ryan and their families, it was a dream come true. 

Natasha and Ryan met in October eight years ago on Natasha’s 22nd birthday in the elevator of the apartment building they unknowingly shared. Although they only met briefly, Ryan decided to ask Natasha to come down to the bar he was working at at the time. 

It took her a while, but in January Natasha headed over to Ryan’s work, accompanied by her best friend, Caitlin Delaney. 

Caitlin said she knew right away that Ryan meant something to Natasha because she seemed shy around him when she was normally so chatty and outgoing. 

Natasha and Ryan chatted the whole night and Ryan said he was constantly looking for a good opportunity to ask her out for coffee, but Caitlin was always hovering not far away. 

Finally, when the two girls got up to leave, Ryan saw the chance he had been waiting for all night and made his move. 
“I remember running around the horseshoe bar,” said Ryan. “Like, sprinting. And then when I got outside I tried to act all cool and casual.” 
Natasha agreed to meet him for coffee and the two have been together ever since. 

Eight months later, on Natasha’s 23rd birthday and one year from when they had first met, Ryan proposed. 

“I was shocked,” said Caitlin. “I had to sit down on the sidewalk. It hadn’t even been a year.” 

Despite the quick engagement, everyone who knows Natasha and Ryan can see they are perfect for each other. Ryan himself describes Natasha as his love, his life and his everything.

 “They absolutely beam around each other,” said Natasha’s mother, Edna (Eddie) Sinclair.

 Ryan says he knew he wanted to be with Natasha for the rest of his life after she started to laugh at a funny part in a movie one day when the two of them were sitting on the couch. 
“I could just picture our little girl laughing like that,” he said. “That’s when I thought to myself ‘I want to have kids with her.’”

 Ryan and Natasha got married after a two-year engagement and they have been trying for a baby ever since. 

Having a baby, though, would not be an easy journey. When Natasha was 16, she needed surgery to remove her appendix, which had become inflamed. The surgery went well, but a few months later she started getting sick.

 “She was having the same symptoms as before so I took her back to the hospital,” said Eddie.
 Natasha needed to have an organ wash this time around to deal with toxins that had leaked from her appendix before the first surgery and had remained in her body. She was put on antibiotics afterwards and was sent home.

 However, the infection from the toxins managed to stay in her system and Natasha needed a third surgery.

 Luckily, the infection was healed after that third surgery, but it created a problem that would stay with Natasha for the rest of her life. 

As a result of being opened up so many times, adhesions—or scar tissue—fused Natasha’s fallopian tubes to her bladder, making it impossible for her eggs to travel to her womb and for Natasha to get pregnant naturally. 

Adhesions can sometimes be removed, but in Natasha’s case, because of where they formed, removing them could be fatal. 

So it was a botched surgery in her teens that has made it almost impossible for Natasha to have baby. 

“When people think infertility, they think of an old, lonely woman. What they don’t understand is it can happen to someone as young and loving as Tasha,” Caitlin said.

 In fact, infertility affects over 8.5 per cent of Canadians—or over a quarter of a million Canadian couples, according to the Royal Commission for New Reproductive Technologies. It is defined as the inability to conceive a child after a year of regular, unprotected intercourse or the inability to carry a baby to term. 

Eddie says Natasha has always wanted and loved kids. She is the oldest of three children and has always doted on her siblings.

 “I don’t remember her lugging dolls around,” she said. “It was probably her siblings she played with.” Eddie was 16 when she was pregnant with Natasha, and after she was born Eddie was told she wouldn’t be able to have any more children because of complications from surgeries.

 Eddie says Natasha didn’t understand why she couldn’t have any more siblings and was always asking her mother for “just one” brother or sister. 

“She really wanted a sibling,” said Eddie, laughing. Natasha loved the idea of siblings. When Eddie was pregnant with her third child, Natasha would read stories to her mother’s belly and talk to her unborn brother every day.

 Eddie says when Dakota was born and the nurses took him away to be weighed and measured, no one could get him to stop crying—until Natasha began to talk to him. 
“I guess her voice calmed him,” said Eddie. “Because when he heard her voice he turned to look at her and stopped crying.” 

Natasha’s mother-in-law, Nancy Derouchie, says Natasha seems to have a special bond with all children. “She lights up like a Christmas tree when she see them,” she said. After trying for a baby for two years, Natasha and Ryan decided to go to their family doctor to see what was going on. After several tests, their doctor referred them to an OBGYN, who in turn referred them to the Ottawa Fertility Clinic. It was there that they were told they would need in vitro fertilization treatments to have any hope of having a baby of their own.

 One treatment of in vitro fertilization can cost upwards of $10,000.
 “We didn’t know how we were going to pay for it,” Natasha said. Natasha and Ryan are so deserving of children that people in their community were going to hold fundraisers to collect money to help with the cost of IVF. Natasha’s mother was even going to mortgage her fully-paid for home to pay for the treatments if all else failed.

 “They have so much love to offer,” said Eddie. “I couldn’t imagine a life without (Natasha) being able to have a child.”

 Cue Hot 89.9 and Win a Baby. It was Eddie who heard the blurb on the radio advertising a Win a Baby contest that was to begin on Labour Day. 

Natasha says her mom called her and excitedly told her she was going to win a baby and explained how she was to sign up. “We needed to write a bit about why we deserved to win a baby, in 100 words or less,” said Natasha. Ryan says Natasha didn’t say much about the contest right away; she just said they were going to win a baby. Ryan was skeptical about the contest at first, because he believed they had no chance of winning and he didn’t want Natasha to be disappointed, but she eventually convinced him to give it a shot. 

The top five couples were announced right before Thanksgiving weekend, and Natasha and Ryan, for confidentiality reasons, were Couple A. 

Thanksgiving weekend was spent in a state of numbness, at the same time hoping for a win and preparing for a loss. 
“I almost fell off my chair when we heard we had won,” said Ryan. “I almost still can’t believe it.”
 The contest has given Natasha and Ryan new hope of having a family of their own. “Win a Baby has given us an amazing opportunity,” said Natasha. “We’re so grateful.” Natasha starts the in vitro fertilization treatments in 

January, and if everything goes well, she could be pregnant in February. Natasha’s sister-in-law is expecting a baby currently, and the two hope to share the new-baby joys together. 
“We’re hoping to have two little ones by Christmas next year,” Nancy said.      

It’s the End of the World as we know it, and I feel fine? -Charly

Yet again we are faced with another end of the world countdown, yet the sun is shining, the birds are singing and we have finally been graced with a true spring day. So why is there this looming of an Apocalypse a mere 2.5 hours away?

This last week has been trying my patience with the copious amount of rain and on the day of the Apocalypse I have a light bounce in my step! Hardly seems likely that with the looming dread I would feel so fine! Is that an indication that I can’t predict the future (yes!) or is it that the end of the world seems very unlikely? (yes!)

All believers are welcome to say “I told you so!” if our world turns into sudden catastrophe, but until then I will enjoy what I have been graced with today, which is the sunshine, the warmth and the chance to spend time again with people I love.

Any day we can be hit with tragedies in our own lives, so instead of counting down until something bad happens, put your energy into all the good things and good people that are around you.

Tick, tock, tick, tock, say goodbye to the catastrophe clock.

Virtual High Five!

Talent

There is so much talent out there that never gets proper recognition. So I wanted to take this moment to introduce you to a very talented person.

Her name is Diana Begg and she is a super fabulous Interior Decorator. I thought of posting this because she is going to be at the Home Show in Cornwall, Ontario this weekend and her unique, creative designs are definitely worth taking a look at.

If you aren't able to make it out, visit her website at www.indulgeinteriors.ca

Never be afraid to tell someone how wonderful they are. With all of the bad in the world, spread the good whenever you can!


Charly

My Never-Ending ‘To-Do’ List (Charly)

So with the nice weather that Mother Nature has finally graced us with, I have had the sudden urge to fix everything in my home! I’ve had ideas in my head for a long time I suppose, but now that the weather is nicer I’m more prone to want to follow out the things I want to do because I am finding less and less excuses to put it off. I did a quick to-do list and discovered that “YIKES!” I have enough items that could potentially take me the whole year to complete and that’s barely scratching the surface of what I want done.

I have a tendency of always making these handy little ‘to-do’ lists, but then feeling overwhelmed by them because they encompass everything I want done and then I want to push myself to get them completed in a short time frame. This would be entirely possible if I didn’t have a husband, a full-time job, piano lessons, and family and friends that deserve my attention as well. Even then, who wants to spend their entire life scratching things off their ‘to-do’ lists? I think life should be a little more about spontaneity. I have had the best experiences when I didn’t have a plan. I used to miss out on going places with friends or spending quality time with my husband because I was so focused on all the things I wanted to get done, that I was missing out on the whole part of life: living.

So for all you people out there that are like me and are falling victim to the too-long ‘to-do’ list, do me a favour and throw it away! Don’t set unnecessary pressure on yourself to complete items that you will get to on your own time. If you are really attached to your list, set aside 30-60 minutes a day to work at it, but that’s it. Life is about balance, and that is definitely something I am striving for this year.

Charly

Pee Monster (written by Charly)

This is an embarrassing story, but I feel it’s worth telling because it might give someone a well-needed laugh.

I decided that today was going to be the day that I would clean, clean, clean. I had been slacking all week because I just felt really run down after work so I didn’t do very much- even though I thought about doing tons, it just didn’t happen. I prepped on my way home from work by getting a large Steeped Tea, a nice caffeine boost to ensure that I wouldn’t find myself plopped on the couch 15 minutes after getting home disregarding all my previous ambitions.

My husband was leaving for a boy’s night so it was a perfect time for me to blast my favourite music and dance around the house while cleaning. I was moving at a good pace, the house looked like it was back in order to the point that I was satisfied so I decided to take an HGTV break before heading over to Tasha’s for a sleepover since both our husbands are away for the evening.

I was sitting there watching “Property Shop” when I started to notice an overwhelming pee odour surrounding me. It was pungent and nauseating so I started to smell my clothing and my dog Bella sitting next to me, but nothing seemed to be matching what I smelt. I had picked up a pillow that had fallen on the floor and put it beside me when I sat down so I picked it up to see if maybe that was where the odour was coming from. To my shock the opposite side of the pillow that I had picked up was wet. I immediately let out a loud exclamation of “GROSS!” and knew immediately I had found the source. You would hope this would be end of the story, I think we can all agree this is bad enough right?

However, I continued to investigate the rest of the couch, worried that the pillow may have transferred wetness. It was then that I discovered the tidal wave of wetness that was all over 2 out of the 4 cushions. To add insult to this already unfortunate pee accident, I was sitting on 1 of those pee-ridden cushions! You would think I would have noticed or felt the impending wetness long before it was discovered but I was particularly layered up today with the cold chill so I didn’t notice. I looked at Bella sitting beside me and watched as her expression of calm changed to that of guilt as I made my discovery. I called my husband immediately to tell him the news and he informed me that Bella was startled when he came home this afternoon so she must have peed out of fright. She normally would run up to him right away, but because she was scared she sat frozen on the couch with an apparent loose bladder until she realized it was him.

Thankfully, the couch was nearing its expiry date, so Bella (who I will now refer to as Pee Monster) merely sped up the process. The couch is now sitting in the garage waiting for garbage day and I am off to take a shower and to wash my favourite jeans which I don’t think I’ll ever feel the same about again.

The Road Less Travelled

I often take the road less travelled...and it’s not always by choice. I often stumble upon it or take a wrong turn and then realize I have no idea where I am. I have had the best and worst experiences when this happens because I find myself in the most unexpected places.

Like last Saturday, I was driving to see Tasha at her Mom’s place. I had been there before, but I had never driven. This whole scenario is solely my fault because I unintentionally condition myself to be navigationally challenged. When I am not driving my mind wanders about all the things I want to do in life. Depending on the length of the drive, I could have my whole house renovated by the time we stop. I often have no recollection of street names or landmarks that brought me there, and I really should try to focus more but I enjoy the time to just be in my head because there’s nowhere else for me to be for that moment. It’s relaxes me and excites me about the fun things to come.

Thankfully, I am resourceful, so I have that going for me. It had been awhile since I had driven to Ottawa on my own so I did the smart thing, I asked for the address and I mapquested it. Mapquest has always been a reliable tool for me but when the directions first came up that Richmond was in Toronto I was knew I was in trouble. So I tried it again this time being more specific and it told me it was a 10 minute drive. Having been there previously that made sense to me so I hopped in the car. I followed the directions, took the appropriate exit and found myself nowhere near where I was supposed to be so I called Tasha and asked for help not surprised at all that I had again managed to get myself lost.

She told me to take the Fallowfield exit. “No problem !“ I thought to myself. I was close to Moodie so I knew I could catch the 417 from there. A little off the beaten path but I used my resources and was relieved to be back on track! WRONG! I would like to pretend that I knew it wasn’t right early on and did a quick turn around, but it wasn’t until I saw the Carp exit that I knew that something was wrong. I called Tash again, and thank god she picked up because I had to pee like a racehorse and I couldn’t afford any more detours.

I re-capped my adventure for her and immediately she gave me the devastating news- Fallowfield can only be found on the 416! By this point, I was frustrated with myself that I had again gotten lost and held up all our grand plans for the day. I made a personal note that this was something that I would definitely have to work on in the future.

I am grateful it was a beautiful, sunny day because my bladder could not have handled the gentle trickling of falling rain. A 10 minute drive turned into an hour drive but I got there! I got to enjoy a little extra sunshine and have a little more time to myself so I chalked it up to experience and tried to make the best of it. I opened up my sunroof, blasted some fun music and within no time at all I was parked in her Mom’s driveway.

We often too much emphasis on finding the quickest route when sometimes it the detours that teach us the most and become the most memorable!

It’s important to have a plan, but I also think a big part of life is being okay with feeling lost from time to time, taking a detour and having the confidence to know that even if you don’t get where you want to go as quick as you would like, you’ll still get there and you may actually feel a little wiser!

Charly