Happy 9th Birthday Tabitha!

Me and my new born baby Tabitha--January 2000.

Tabs big birthday is in a few weeks. Today she celebrated her true birthday with her family. Peter made them waffles for breakfast and then took the two oldest girls swimming. We had take out pizza for supper and soon Peter is taking Mist and Tabs out on the town again: Cosmic bowling. 

Fernando is exhausting. He is a lover, always wanting to be held and cuddled. But cries all night long in his kennel! He is way too tiny to sleep with anyone, he'd be squashed or break something falling out of bed. He eats a lot. Maybe I should limit him a bit because he's got bad gas tonight. He is asleep at my feet as I type this.

I managed to get out into the world yesterday to shop for Peter's birthday. Mist looked after Pip and Tabs was at a friend's birthday party. So, alone I wondered the shops and stopped for an iced tea at Starbucks. It felt so good to be up and about again after such a long convalescence. And for some unusual reason, everyone I overheard was speaking Spanish! I take it as some sign of something. My new boss is Cuban so perhaps it all means something. However, I over did it--being out and about, feeling like Holly Golightly in my black coat, boots and sunglasses ensemble--by evening felt like I was near death and had to collapse into bed with barely enough energy to whisper my delegations: Pip was Peter's for the night and Fernando Misty's.

Pip and I are recovering slowly. Pip's tummy still hurts and I am still recovering from bronchitis. I am basically very tired all of the time. We obviously have had influenza: fevers, upper and lower respiratory and gastro intestinal. The works. I know it is the flu because of how long it has taken us to recover our energy levels. Tabs was lucky she just had a temp near 40 oC for a few days and blew it right out of her system. Pip and I not so lucky. And as any mother knows, it is the nights up with several sick children that wears one out and then the mom comes down with it. Not to mention Fernando keeping us all up.

Anyway, all in all a blur of a holiday season and I am not sad to start the New Year fresh. Although I figure another week to recover would be nice. But no luck. I have a meeting on Monday about my new job and then classes start next week.

Found a new Buddhist group. True Tibetan Buddhism, my favorite. A small group but related to the much larger centre in Nelson. Only glitch is I can't go to tomorrow's meeting as no one would want me there coughing etc.