Pizza! With peaches! Really!

It's getting colder and darker earlier these days. I guess it must be fall. Alas. I did manage to make good on my "eat as much fresh produce as possible" promise though, before the tomatoes start to taste like cardboard. And I'm a wee bit tired of corn on the cob to tell the truth. But, if you happen upon some Ontario peaches that don't look too sad and wrinkly, may I suggest a pizza recipe? That's right, pizza. Grab yourself a premade pizza crust and layer on the following:

smoked salmon, enough to cover the crust
thinly sliced red onion
camembert cheese (get one of those smaller rounds, slice 'er up, and scatter about)
sliced peaches (you can use canned peaches, but fresh are so much better)

Slide it in the oven for 15 minutes or so at 400-425. If you're feeling extra fancy, scatter some shredded arugula overtop (I have not tried this, but my friend K, who's recipe this is, says it's a nice touch. I think the pizza is fine without it). It's not a combo I would have come up with, but that's what friends are for, no?

And the most important reason it is good not to be knocked up right now

It's official: Charlie has dropped his nap. Fuckity fuck.

The pros and cons

Reasons why it is good NOT to be pregnant right now:

1. I've run back in to the sweet, sweet embrace of caffeine. I couldn't help it. Charlie has decided to nap every other day, and I was on deadline. And let's face it, I'm a way better parent after a coffee. I am not a morning person, and Charlie is. How else am I going to balance that difference? At least I'm not back on my afternoon-diet-Coke kick. Yet. I was tempted by a Coke Blak while we were in the States (although HS has spotted them here), and man did that give me a nice afternoon rush. The taste is somewhat like a Coke float if you made that float with coffee ice cream. Weirdly tasty, good 'n' buzzy.

2. I just started another freelance project. I'm going to need every nap time I can get.

3. I just bought skinny jeans. (Ok, that's not such a big deal. They were on sale at Old Navy for $29, so I figured what the hell. And since I'm planning on getting knocked up eventually, I don't want to pay the $249 for the J. Brand version. And honestly, they really aren't that flattering unless you are a stick or you wear them with a cute tunic top.)

4. We are looking at making major, major changes to our lives next spring. So a baby in May would complicate things radically. And with the threat of PPD the second time around, I need to be settled and stable before another baby enters our lives. (I just finished Ghost in the House: Motherhood, Raising Children, and Struggling with Depression by Tracy Thompson. It is excellent. I recognized a lot of what I went through in this book, which is comforting and unsettling at the same time. I also read What am I Thinking by Karen Kleiman, which is a practical guide to having a baby after depression.)

Despite all of these reasons, I was still a little disappointed to see only one line on that pregnancy test. But at least I only used two tests this time.

The future

Charlie starts preschool tomorrow. I think he's ready. Oh, there will be tears I'm sure (his and mine most likely), but he'll adjust. Eventually.

But something scary hit me the other night. Charlie will be 17 when he leaves home for university (assuming, of course, he goes). Holy f*ck. Doesn't 17 seem awfully young to be on your own?

Must start an RESP.

The days are long but the years are fast

I can't believe summer is over. Just like that, it's September, Charlie's surgery was a couple of days ago, and he starts preschool next week. My heed, she reels. And I haven't even posted about our summer yet.

Yep, I did say surgery. I didn't post about it before because I was trying not to fret, but fret I did nonetheless. How can you not if your sweet baby is going to be in pain? Although it wasn't surgery, per se. There was no incision, thank god, but there was general anesthetic. This was a procedure to (please, please) fix his reflux so we can take Charlie off of at least one of his meds. It's basically two injections that will shore up the bladder wall and stop that annoying (and potentially damaging) two-way passage of urine between Charlie's kidneys and bladder. We'd like our urine going one-way only thank you very much! We talked about the operation a lot with Charlie and read every single "X goes to the hospital" book I could get my mitts on (I recommend the Franklin version over Curious George). And we talked about what was going to happen and how Charlie would get Jello for breakfast because it was a special day, and after the operation we could get chocolate milk from the cafeteria on the way home.

All things considered, the day went very well.

We fed Charlie copious amounts of Jello for breakfast. We topped him up with more before his 10:30-no-food-or-drink deadline. The nurses at CHEO were awesomely friendly, and Charlie was so chatty they decided not to give him some preliminary sleep meds because they could make him "angry-angry instead of sad-angry" when he woke up from the anesthetic. Funny, they never mentioned that before.

Charlie was great just until the hand off. Then he started to cry, and so did I. Good thing HS can hack this stuff. We handed over our baby, and they whisked him away. As we left we could hear Charlie talking about the baby in his tummy to the nurses, so I felt better. (Charlie is convinced that his has a baby in his tummy. It's a girl, and her name is Cracker. Lovingly named after his favourite snack food, but boy that name gets a few raised eyebrows. I'm pretty sure my MIL was quizzing Charlie about possible babies in MY tummy -- I brought Materna to her house, so it makes sense -- and hence little baby Cracker was conceived. I am not pregnant at this time, but we'll see next week!)

The surgery went very well. Textbook even, hurrah! But man that anesthetic f*cks them up. We definitely got the sad-angry at top volume. But after a little nap on the way home, Charlie was much better. And after a half-litre of chocolate milk, almost back to normal.

I'm exhausted, but he bounced back just fine.