Beauty in Creation: Spring

Beauty in Creation is a new flickr group capturing the beauty of the all God’s creations. The challenge for April is “What brings spring to mind for you?”.

When I lived in Trinidad I had no concept of Spring, but once I experienced my first Winter, followed by my first Spring, I knew that I had found my favourite time of year!

In my pre-mommyhood days, love was in the air for me during Spring, it was a great time, so full of life and romance. But now, it’s a bit different, still a time of love, but a time to watch the smiles and hear the laughter of my children, to notice the buds in the trees, to witness my babies do things for the first time.

The branches here are still bare, but the grass is green, and we can swing! It’s a wonderful thing!

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UPDATE: There’s a WINNER!!!!!!!
So, Haleem sent me the following email, and all I have to say is that he is either a genius or, ummmm, a scary stalker…

Hmm.. let’s see.

When you were married he was 21 and you were 20. According to one comment of mousehunter on my blog, he started his job 2 days after he was married.

April 30 (when you were legally married) was a Thursday. If you were married on a Friday or Saturday then he could have started his job two days later (Monday).

So that means May 2 (Sat) or May 9 (following Sat).

On one hand you could have just decided you can’t hold of the nikah and did it on May 2.
Or You could have delayed to inform family and friends but your family was opposed to it …
Or he could have been an overzealous convert and wanted to marry on a Friday and completely screw my theory up…

Hmm….

I am going to go with May 2, 1998 (since this is your 9th anniversary).

And now, today’s contest… the prize is a free custom banner for your blog, or if you don’t need it or don’t have a blog, a free greeting card/business card/flyer/announcement card/logo or anything else that you need designed… a free design!

The Mousehunter and I were married in the Spring… it’s coming soon… you gotta guess!! The first person to EMAIL me (info@adventures-in-motherhood.com) the correct date, including the year… this would be our 9th anniversary ia, wins!!! You can only guess once! Good Luck!

(contest is not open to family or friends that know the answer)

Love Thursday & the first one

The lovely Mona just had a baby boy, who survived open heart surgery and now, thank God, is fine and at home with his family. So, in honour of Mona and because she asked for a birthing story, here’s the birth of my 4 year old.
(and yes, that’s a photo of me)

Of course for the months before his birth, my husband and I were beside ourselves with excitement. My husband spent weeks upon weeks researching strollers (is it a guy thing?), and I spent weeks upon weeks complaining about my swollen ankles and eating waaaaay too much ice-cream!

Around the 7 month timeframe we took a prenatal class, which I would certainly recommend to all new parents-to-be, it was excellent. In the class, our instructor focused a lot on not being induced, “don’t get induced! it’s the worst thing!”... on and on she went. She introduced us to all of the different methods that are used in induction… gells, the balloon thingy, pitocin... then about epidurals and even enemas.

About 10 days after my due date had passed, I had an appointment to be induced, and yes, I had everything single thing done to me! It started with the gels early Friday morning, followed by a Foley catheter and went on to pitocin by Saturday morning when I still had no signs of contractions. By 10pm on Saturday, the first set of contractions finally arrived, they came non-stop, and soon I was given an epidural, but it was too much-too late and by the time I was fully dilated at 1am, I couldn’t feel a thing!

The rude and sleepy doctor came in, pushed the lovely and caring nurses out of the way and started her poking and prodding, it was horrible!

Things were progressing extremely slowly and I wanted to totally give up. I couldn’t stand it… not the pain, but the lack of pain! I was so tired and everyone was saying “push, push”, and I just couldn’t… it was heartbreaking for me… I believed that I would lose him.

You see, previously, the inept doctor broke my amniotic sac, which did nothing to speed up my contractions, but instead caused my baby’s heart rate to rapidly drop, thereafter forcing the blessed nurse to pump saline solution back in there to prevent trama to the baby, all while I couldn’t stop shivering from my soaring body temperature!

Moments before the doctor used every bit of her strength to pull him out with a suction cup, his heart rate again started plummeting, so much so that at one point it was gone… the doctor stepped away from me and said “well, there is nothing more we can do!” Can you believe that?? Those were the words she picked to tell a first time mother who was had lost all motivation to push and whose baby was already stuck!

The quick thinking nurse checked his heart again, which, thank God, was still feebly pumping… giving me some renewed strength… but making the situation so intense that 2 additional nurses were called into the room. The doctor, although totally lacking in personality, was exceptional at getting the baby out. There was no time to verify gender, in fact there was barely enough time for her to remove her sissors after she cut his cord… the 2 new nurses grabbed him and ran off without a word. My mom and I just stayed quietly in the room while the doctor finished up with me, not knowing if he was alive or not…

Minutes later, my husband, who had followed the nurses, came back cradling our tiny little bundle in his arms and sporting a humongous grin on his face!

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So, continuing on my week of contests… today’s is pretty special, it’s my newest baby! I am starting an online web development class next month, and the prize for this contest is the course for free!!

On Monday I am finishing the site with more details and a demo of the actual course format, and I would appreciate any publicity. To enter the contest, do a post anytime from MONDAY to FRIDAY next week about the course, with a link to http://www.shaziamistry.com/learn and you will be entered into a random draw… please leave me a link here if you’re entering… you get link love for every comment

RSS, Subscribe, that orange button…

What does it all mean?

If you are wondering what a blog reader is… you need to watch this video, thanks to Common Craft!! Then you can sign up at your prefered reader (I use bloglines), then come back and click the orange button to subscribe to mine!!

Click To Play

Who's the baby

First person to comment with the correct sequence of who’s who gets a $25 Amazon gift certificate.

here are your hints:

Two year old
Four year old
One year old

UPDATE: Hem won! Congrats!!!

It was 4, 1, 2, 4 thanks for playing!!

The "my husband doesn't want it anymore" contest!

So you know how my son loves Indian food, especially Tandori Chicken which I finally cooked last week? Well, my husband said that the Tandori was too spicy and that “I should NEVER make it in this house again!” Which made the 4 year sob and sob most unexpectedly… because we could never have Tandori Chicken again!! As you can imagine, it was quite hilarious, to us at least.

Being the obedient wife that I am, I decided to give away the Tandori mix! Actually I am running a little contest with 2 prizes, each consisting of 6 packs of the different Indian seasonings that I usually use in my recipes!

All you have to do is post a recipe on your blog an link back to my food blog http://adventures-in-motherhood.com/cooking, and if you don’t have a blog, just email me your recipe and I’ll add you to the list. I’ll do a random draw on May 8th!

I’ll cook all the recipes that I get, with credit to you of course!!
Yummy yummy!