It's All About Me!!

Wow! I am finally joing the ranks of the bloggers. Why not, I say. I have plenty of opinions to share and many things to rant about.

For my first post I'd like to really expand on the About Me and maybe give a quick synopsis of my life so you will know where I am coming from.

Starting with my username, Zeemaid. I used to be addicted to SIMS and after I found all the little cheats and made my characters incredibly weathly I decided to create a maid character so she would clean up after the little slobs. She would have to be, of course, French because they do call it a French maid's uniform. So by now you're getting the drift (I hope). Just think about it. *L*

Three children later and I really feel like I am "Ze maid" some days so I adopted the username much to my husband's delight. HA!

Ideally this blog is will impart my wisdom and insights into parenting. But most likely it will be full of the ups and downs and frustrations of being a mom of three children under five.

I have three wonderful children. (mainly when they're sleeping) I experienced a brief period of infertility (2 years) before we conceived our first child (see my article on helium at http://www.helium.com/items/201917-relax-happen-youre-trying if you'd like more information on how we overcame infertility.)

Baby number two happened without too much difficult and baby number three just couldn't wait it seemed. My daughter was eight months old when I became pregnant with our son. So my life has been a little crazy. Especially given that my son was born at a whopping 12 pounds, yes naturally, and he almost died in the process. He's hale and hearty now but it was a tense time.

Add to that that my husband was fired, without reason, from his job just 7 weeks before I was due with my son. The entire time he was off was spent panic stricken trying to find a new job or buy a business. Which he did, buy a business that is, in another town. So I had my baby, we put our house up for sale and I had to keep my house tidy, YIIII! Then my sister-in-law, who was also expecting came down with pneumonia and menigitis and went into a coma after delivering her baby pre-term by c-section. So we had to take our house off the market and help out family. The baby is great. She was in the hospital for 3 months and is now at home with limited mobility and sad to say, she may never recover fully. Her health issues now are many and complex.

So the last year has had it's challenges. I went through a bad phase emotionally before Christmas time and my husband finally decided to drag me off to a homeopathic outfit in Vancouver called Ubiquity Wellness Centre. Also to deal with my high blood pressure, an after result of the birth of my son. They basically told me what I already knew but it was nice to have someone else confirm it. I basically tired, that is my body is exhausted. They've given me some supplements to aid my stress and digestion and recommending a whole list of foods that I am sensitive too. I have had to eliminate dairy, wheat, flour, gluten, and sugar. It's been incredibly limiting because even people with celiac get to eat more than I do. But I've struggled throught it and the good news is that we've almost eliminated my headaches. I'm due to go back for a follow-up next week. That is if I can get someone to work for me.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I also work full time evening shifts. I own a video store with my sister-in-law and have for the past 4 years. I had in the past cut back my hours and before my third child was born, only worked two nights a week. However, we are struggling financially (my video store that is) and it has become necessary but me to come back to work full-time to save on employee wages. Hopefully this won't last long. I've been finding it a bit of a stretch to look after the kids all day and then work till 9 or 10 at night.

Although if I had to work this is the way to do it. I get the best part of the day with my kids and only miss 2 hours of their day before bed. That's better than a lot of working moms get.

I should also mention that I live with my in-laws or rather we share a home. At first they lived downstairs, we lived up but now because of her health problems we've moved down this last week. (Add that to a full time job) So we've squished a family of 5 into about 1100 square feet while they get about 1800. Am I bitter? Not really, it does irk me sometimes because I've a real lack of storage and moving the house in and around works and kids was more than a little stressful.

I just feel like we are finally getting our lives back to normal. However, there are several unresolved issues.

• my husband is suing his employer for wrongful dismissal. Trial is in June
• we still need to sell our home and move to the other town so my husband won't have to commute, especially with the price of gas.
• I need to figure out what to do with my video store with my sister-in-law and my future involvement with it, particularly if my family decides to move.

So that's my life in a nut shell at the moment. Hopefully I haven't come across as overly whiny. I think I've managed to get most of that out of my system in the last few months. :)d

So stay tuned for my next instalment.

Zeemaid