A Tale of Two Appliances

When we bought our house 4 years ago, it came with some of the lousiest appliances around. The stove had to be replaced almost immediately since, when you turned the oven on to say 350 degrees the entire oven, inside and out, heated up to 350 degrees. So, after a few months of singing my pregnant belly followed by a few more months of fearing for Kieran's young life, our stove was replaced on my first maternity leave. Then mere days into my second maternity leave, our dryer stopped drying and with a baby due to born any second (seriously I had been on mat leave for such a short time the baby hadn't even been born yet) this was not the time to be running to the laundromat. And, since it's cheaper to buy these units in pairs, in came the new washer/dryer (and the new baby!)

Now, the two remaining large appliances, namely the Dishwasher and the Fridge, have been battling for the title of "worst performing" and "most annoying" for years. In fact, the dryer dying was a complete shock because it was not on the bottom of my most-hated appliance list. But, about a year ago, the dishwasher - ironically called something like the "Whisper 2000" - started to make a loud hour-long buzzing noise during its cycle. Noises which we studiously ignored and instead, just learned that it was best to run the dishwasher while not at home and definitely NOT while trying to watch TV or sleeping.

The fridge, which loves to freeze random items in the fridge part, but which cannot keep ice cream hard in the freezer to save it's pathetic life, has also been on a downhill slide. And here we learned that you had to 1) check if it was closed every time you walked into the kitchen because it doesn't seal properly and 2) to not keep anything that really "needed to be frozen" in the freezer door because they wouldn't freeze (which is why Kieran spend a lot of summer eating liquid freezies.)

Anyway, in recent weeks, the dishwasher's annoyingly loud buzzing noise has started to become increasingly more alarming and now whenever you open the dishwasher door this smell of something akin to animal feces would seep out. (Dinner at our house, come on over!)

However, Eric, aka "the man of-a-million-useful-contacts" has a client who works at a huge appliance company which, once a year, hosts a "friends and family" sale where they sell their appliances at employee pricing, minus 10 per cent. (40 percent off)

Anyway, even with Eric not working, our dying (if not quite 100 percent dead) dishwasher, made us decide to not skip the sale this year. After getting a babysitter and standing in the freezing cold for an hour and a half to get into this sale where we found the dishwasher (crazy cheap!) and figured that while we were there, we might as look at the fridges. Due to space restrictions, our fridge options were few to begin with - we basically had to buy the smallest one they sold - but buy it we did.

So, now since all 5 of our big appliances, all purchased at the worst times imaginable and therefore completely devoid of anything that could ever be called a "bell" or a "whistle", have finally been replaced. (Maybe in some other lifetime I will get my water-dispensing dream fridge
or have a washer with a superfluous "steam" cycle.)

Merry Christmas to me!

Parsley and Crossed Fingers

So, we waited for close to four hours in line yesterday to get our H1N1 vaccinations. I am annoyed? Yes. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.

I'm not so much annoyed that we waited for four hours...I was more annoyed that the municipality's fancy website said the wait would be less than an hour. We could have been prepared for 4 hours but weren't...we were prepared for less than 1.

The plan was for Eric to pick up the kids early from daycare and come get me at work and head out the clinic. I told him to pack drinks and snacks and toys - which he did. We had to make a stop at the garage to pick up our car that was being repaired and while Eric was inside I opened the bag to realize (although I should have known) that my idea of snacks (crackers, granola bars etc) was quite different from Eric's, which was Halloween candy.

Yep...the 18-month old holding a little bag of mini-Doritos and my three-year-old with a Halloween size Pringles with a Twizzler chaser? My kids. (Although they were very happy...so it wasn't all bad.)

Anyway we stood for two hours before being ushered into a waiting room for another half hour. Then we were called to register and ushered to yet another waiting room for another hour. At least the third waiting area was very spacious and even had a supervised play area for kids - complete with volunteers wearing rubber gloves and disinfecting toys every 30 seconds.

After the shot...both my kids screamed as though they were getting their arms cut off...we were ushered to yet another waiting area where we were handed a thimbleful of juice and told to wait for another 15 minutes to make sure we had no adverse reactions.

By the time it was done the kids were fine just plain tired and hungry. Kieran talked about food the entire way home. He wanted pizza, noodles and french fries with ketchup. "And when I get big like a grownup, I want to eat hamburgers, pop and coffee and drive a car." They fought over a single stale rice cake that was kicking around the van. We got home and while I was unbuckling Kaya from her seat, Kieran was standing in the rain on the doorstep eating the parsley that is (inexplicably) still growing in a pot outside the door.

But anyway...it's done (although the kids have to go back in three weeks for a second shot). I know the shot is not going to be everybody's choice. It's surrounded by controversy and mismanagement and some unknown risks...but I do know this. I know that if it was one of my kids who ended up on a ventilator in the ER I would never forgive myself. I do know that the regular seasonal flu that kill hundreds of thousands every year does not kill otherwise healthy 13 year old hockey players. So, I can wait 4 hours for a shot or wait 4 hours in an Emergency waiting room to see a doctor to get Tamiflu when they do get it.

It's a crapshoot and I made my choice. Fingers crossed that it was the right one.

Fishy, Fishy, Fishy Fish

We got Kieran a fish for his bedroom. And because Kieran is three, the fish is called Nemo. (Yes, we WOULD also let him name a cat Garfield and a dog Scooby Doo). Eric picked up one of those small little mini-aquarium starter sets meant for kids at some clearance place last week and thought it would be perfect for Kieran's bedroom. He then suggests a fun family outing to go to the fish store and pick out a new fish - yay says Kieran! -so one night after dinner, we pack up and off we go. Once we are all in the car, it's already getting sort of late and Eric mentions that he wants to go to a fish store in Chinatown that his brother has recommended. But is late and I think we should just go the the big box pet emporium that is 5 minutes from our house. Eric relents because, after all, we just need to get fish for a three year old and how hard can that be? (Yes, you do already know the answer).

We get to the store, find the fish section (where Kieran loudly announces that he would like to buy a whale) and wait 15 minutes for the lone saleswoman to give us some help. Eric has found a tank similar to ours on their shelf, and tells and asks her to recommend a good fish for that model.

With barely, and I mean barely, concealed disgust, she points to a large aquarium, swimming with literally hundreds of identical goldfish and says: "One of those." The box Eric is holding shows pictures of quite a few fish that would be suitable for the aquarium so we tentatively ask if that is our only option and she says, more snappily than necessary, that yes, a goldfish is all that will work.

So I tell Kieran to go to the aquarium and the lady will catch his new goldfish. She opens the tank and catches a random fish and I ask how long we can expect the fish to live.

"In ideal conditions, properly feed and cared for, these fish will live 30 years."

"Really?" I ask, quite surprised. "That long?"

"Well," she practically spits, "with what you are going to put it in, I would say it will live a year, if you're LUCKY."

Now, Eric tries. He had really been hoping for one of the funkier options that the box shows. "Well, is that our only option? We were thinking of maybe getting more than one." He is thinking that if we get a smaller fish we can maybe have more than one.

Again, she barely looks at us. "Uh no. That tank is too small for even one fish."

And so much for our happy little family outing to get fish. Now, which was surely her intention, we feel like bad parents and bad people.

But, then I look over at the tank that she has just taken the goldfish from. It is teeming with hundreds of fish and the irony seems obvious. Does this woman actually think that fish was better off where he was? Or was she still holding out hope for the one in a million chance that someone with a huge house with a lovely temperature-controlled indoor pond is going to come in and their drop 27 cents and spirit our little Nemo off to goldfish utopia?

Sheepishly, we grab our little plastic bag and make our way out of the store.

On our way home, Eric is completely annoyed. Not just at the horrible, scary saleslay, but also at me for squashing his plans for Chinatown to begin with. As it turns out, he had been warned to avoid the very store we had gone to.

To make matters worse, after Eric follows all the proper instructions and tries to make sure that the fish has a nice happy integration into his new home, in less that 24 hours Nemo is not only not moving, he is listing alarmingly sideways. Of course, now I feel twice as guilty (The lousy saleslady was right!We ARE murderers!) and worried (How are we going to explain to Kieran that his new pet is already going to be flushed down the toilet?) and sad (Poor Nemo.) But then the next day, we are witness to a fishy miracle. We wake up to Nemo swimming happily in his little tank. Well, I have no idea if he is happy or not...but he is upright and alive and he doesn't have to visit the "fish doctor" as I warned Kieran he might. Take that, Fish Lady.

Sushi anyone?

People in Glass Houses Shouldn't Call the Kettle Black

A former co-worker of mine coined a phrase that I have more or less come to live by. She was having an argument with an employee in our accounting department and I remember listening to her side of an obviously painful phone conversation with said employee which ended with her slamming down the phone and then turning to me and saying: "Don't you hate it when somebody who you think is stupid actually thinks YOU'RE the stupid one?" And she had a fantastic point, because, yes, I DO hate that.

The same philosophy, I have come to realize, can be applied to parenting. It has come to my attention that someone who I think could probably lay off the reading of the parental manuals for a few minutes in order to properly apply the lessons, actually had the nerve to openly criticize the way I handle my kids. And this makes me crazy.

Let me explain. This woman is a friend of friends. We usually only see each other at a mutual friend's house where it is quite clear that we have nothing in common with each other save children who are the same age.

I could relay the entire story, but for the sake of brevity I'll just say this: Kieran still uses a soother. Yes, he's just past three and he uses a soother - not all the time, strictly for soothing purposes and at bedtime. I wish he didn't and I do understand that the permanent removal of said soother lies in my hands.

Anyway, by the time we had arrived at this party Kieran was already, God help us all, overtired and I could see we were likely going to wind up in some sort of meltdown, which we did. I tried to calm him but he was inconsolable and it was getting sort of embarrassing. Then I remembered with huge relief that I had Kaya's soother in my pocket, which I fished out and handed to him. It worked, as it always does, like magic. Crying stops, party resumes. Three minutes later I take the soother away and off he goes to play.

So apparently, in the world of judgemental parenting, allowing a three year old to use a soother is a transgression of relatively epic proportions. We left the party relatively early, I mean, after all, I had a clearly tired child on my hands who needed his own bed and a good night's sleep. And after we left, apparently, the woman who is, if I may borrow loosely from 30 Rock, the Patron SAINT of Judgemental Parenting (PSofJP), felt it necessary to point out to the other party guests, the colossal error of my ways.

Now, I'm not going to pretend that I have never been critical of anyone else's parenting. I am the first to admit that I have occasionally enjoyed the smug satisfaction that surely all parents feel when they hear of some serious questionable way that other raise their kids, but has it come to this? Party flogging over soothers?

I would have dismissed this episode as sheer bitchiness, except that this is not the first time I have borne the brunt of this woman's parenting wrath. The last time was because we were sharing an anecdote of Kaya waking up from a nap with a fever of 105.1. It had been the dead of winter and we didn't want to rush off to Emergency to sit there for four hours, so I had called Telehealth. I knew about spiking fevers and febrile seizures but I wasn't sure at what point we needed to get to a hospital, but the Telehealth nurse walked us through her entire checklist and by the time the nurse said that based on the symptoms we definitely did NOT need to go the Emergency, Kaya's temperature was already coming down.

Anyway, I was telling this story to our PSoJP and she couldn't seem to get OVER the fact that we didn't go to Emergency. She was citing seizures and brain damage and I told her that I thought brain damage didn't kick in until the fever was much higher, but since I hadn't been expecting any sort of inquisition on the matter I hadn't done any research, so I just said that we listened to the nurse and that Kaya was totally fine. But apparently, again after we left, I was told that a huge discussion took place about how horrible it was that we never took our poor sick baby who was possibly on the verge of death, to the hospital. Out of fury, I did an Internet search and for those of you who may be interested...I was right - the risk of brain damage starts at a temperature of 107.6.

Still, even though I think this woman could learn to be a bit of a nicer person in general, I actually do think that all parents - not just her - need to take a good long look at themselves before they so freely criticize others.

Parenting is not easy and every kid is different. It seems like every decision you make is fraught with the peril of potentially life ruining consequences for your innocent baby or child - it starts in the hospital with the old formula/breastfeeding debate and just goes on from there.

Do we really need to criticize others just to make us feel better about ourselves? What does it matter to her or anyone else if my three year old needs a soother now and then? This culture of "Holier than Thou" parenting is just annoying, because as far as I'm concerned we all live in glass houses.

All I know is this...my kids are loved and safe. They have bedtimes and routines, clean clothes and vegetables. They are happy. And if that isn't enough for you, here is a soother (not Kieran's because he might need it later) to shut you up.

We Must! We Must! We Must Decrease Our Bust!

So, I went back and forth on whether or not I should blog about this following subject. Its sort of personal - in an embarrassing, TMI kind of way. But then I thought about all the posts about childbirth and breastfeeding and thought that it can't get much worse than that, right?

So, here goes:

I had a breast reduction last week. It's something that I had been mulling over ever since the day I turned 15 and my favourite Hawaiian shirt (seriously, they were "in") refused to button. I have spent the last 20-odd years marvelling over the fact that people PAY to make their breasts bigger (and bigger and bigger) and thinking that the small chested of the world just don't know how good they have it. But a reduction, as any doctor will tell you, is major surgery....and I knew that if I ever had kids I would want to be able to breastfeed so I waited.

But I'm done having babies and any usefulness that these mamajamas ever had is finished. I want to join to rest of the world - a world of people who can wear only one bra to work out, or chase their kids in the park without winding up on YouTube.


So...off they went. Literally. OHIP approval was a breeze (trust me when I say there were no gray areas as to whether or not I would qualify. Dr's actual words when the gown was opened at my first consultation was "Oh my. Yes") and when his office reopened after their summer closure I was practically the first in line for the OR.


Its funny how when are 100 percent sure you are ready to do something how easy it can be. I wasn't worried or stressed. Kieran had his own Dr appt on the day of my surgery, so I had Eric drop me off at the hospital and as I waited by myself I was completely fine. Nothing could bring me down - not the check-in nurse's crankiness when I didn't have my company health insurance info, not the prep nurses sympathetic "you have NO ONE here who you could give your wedding ring to during the surgery?" Nothing. I was happy as a clam.

I was walked into the ER and my nerves flared a little bit when I saw the crowd of people in there waiting for me. I felt a bit like a fraud, like I'd pulled one over on everyone. After all, these are people who could have been helping save lives elsewhere. Even the plastic surgeon could be, say, grafting new skin onto a child burn victim or something and instead here they are getting ready cut my boobs off so I can do jumping jacks and wear an empire waist shirt? Seemed selfish.

But I sat up on the table and endured the final indignity of the surgeon using his black marker to draw plans onto my chest. (Nipple goes here. This moves here and all this...goooooesss).

The next thing I knew I was being shaken awake in recovery. The nurses very first words to me are odd. "What do you take for pain at home?" she asks loudly, cutting through my anaesthetic fog and even though I am only seconds awake I'm already sort of pissed at her. "I take Tylenol, but normally my boobs haven't just been hacked off. " OK. I only mumble the first three words aloud, but hopefully, the end of the sentence is definitely implied and I drift back out.

The next time I rouse I am being wheeled out of recovery and to my room, - which is apparently in another city. I mean, I know the hospital is big, but the trip feels like a joke. I am conscious of being in the elevator while an elderly Chinese couple stare down at me so I clamp my eyes shut again until I'm in my room.

The last time I was in a hospital was for the birth of my two children. Since they were both delivered naturally, I wasn't really prepared for how completely out of it I would be. Eric and Kieran came in but knowing that in order not to scare my three-year-old I had to put on the "Mommy is fine" voice, but I just couldn't. So, they dropped off my overnight bag and I stayed blissfully out of until quite late into the night.

When I did come fully awake I was in major pain. Nurses had been in and out of my room changing my IV, adding a Gravol drip several times because I was so nauseous. But at about 4 am I finally hit the buzzer. The nurse comes in and I ask her if I'm almost due for my pain medication. She tells me that I'm not on any and they only give you pain meds if you ask.

OK, so I'm asking, I say.

"What do you want? Tylenol or Morphine?"

Again with the freaking Tylenol. What do I have? Cramps? Obviously I want the morphine, but I something in her tone tells me that if I say that, then she is going to write me up as a junkie, so I stall.

"The Tylenol will take an hour to work." She says, and I can't take it any more.

"Just give me the morphine." I finally say.

"OK" - she says, and I swear she is smirking. "But, just so you know, you're not going home on that."

Seriously, did she think I just just endured a 3 hour surgical procedure just to get the pain meds? Do people actually do that? I have two hundred stitches, my nipples have been removed and reattached mere hours ago, the bed is covered in blood and its 4 o-freaking-clock-in-the-freaking-morning and I swear, this woman wants to hand me a glass of water and some regular strength caplets from the bottom of her purse.

Anyway, she finally adds morphine to my IV and, because I'm clearly going to be in rehab shortly anyway, she gives me an extra hit of Gravol in the IV too. And thankfully, I'm back out until morning.

The Doctor comes in with his med student and they ooh and aah over their handiwork. The med students clearly finds this awkward. He even trips on my IV on the way out. They tell me that I'm free to go home and the nurse comes in for the discharge. Except my blood pressure is really, really low so she gets the doctor back and he says that I need to eat and drink something and move around a bit, so they serve me these hideous concrete waffle sticks that I force myself to eat so that I can just leave, but the blood pressure is still low.

You need to walk around, says the nurse and then leaves.

I get up, get dressed. I'm dizzy (probably blood pressure related) and nauseous. I'm in gigantic amounts of pain because the morphine drip ended hours ago and I swear if they offer me Tylenol one more time I'm going to scream. So, finally, after I'm all ready to go, I lie back in bed and wait for Eric.

About 15 min later the nurse comes back in and says "I told you to walk around!"

Who ARE these people!? Do they hire their nurses directly from Hell or are they just leftover from Nazi concentration camps? What does she want from me?

I tell her that I WAS walking around,but she she's been gone for a half hour and I didn't have anywhere to walk to and that I just had a major surgery.

Thankfully, Eric finally arrives, and the nurse tells me that they normally provide a wheelchair for discharging patients but for me, well....they want me to walk. She reminds me of my mother, who would think that the wheelchair is lazy and that a nice long walk to the carpark a few blocks away will burn off those extra calories from the Waffle Brick I ate for breakfast.

But we finally make it out of the hospital and back to the burbs. We stop first and I fill my prespcription for, naturally, Tylenol and then we're home. I am sore, stitched, bruised, and tired, but at least I'm home.

Not Quite An American Tale

Our cat Wesley is a killer. When we first brought him home from the Humane Society we pretended he was a lazy house cat and kept him indoors for about a year. But once we moved from an apartment to our house and Wesley could see the outdoors, he started to dart outside faster than we could try to stop him (which was usually by wedging his head against the door frame with our leg while carrying 10 shopping bags. )We finally gave up and he's now an outdoor cat. He loves to be outside at night tormenting the birds and mice. I don't like it, but I have come to terms with Wesley's dual nature...part ruthless killer, part sweet lap cat who loves to snuggle up to the kids and eat his Friskies from a china bowl.

Last year there was a veritable Caribana-esque parade of dead mice and birds that wound up on our doorstep and driveway, but this year has been quite a bit less. Well, except for that harrowing incident where we were moving a wooden playhouse that was sitting in our carport to our yard. When we picked up the the playhouse, lo and behold, there was a veritable graveyard of mice carcasses inside where it would appear the mice were able to crawl in and die in peace while Wesley was too big to get inside.

Since then, the dead animal parade has been a bit less. Not sure why...but it's good. No evidence of bird killing and only a couple of mice have turned up in the driveway but were quickly disposed of before Kieran could see them. Until, that is, the other day...

We were heading out and loading the kids into the van. Kieran is lingering at the edge of the driveway while I buckle Kaya into the seat. I tell him to hurry up and then I realize what he is so enamoured with....the large dead mouse practically at his feet.

"Look Mommy!" he squeals excitedly.

I am, of course, instinctively grossed out and cannot hide my disgust. "Yuck! Don't touch it!!!"

Kieran looks up at me quite surprised. Clearly, he doesn't understand why I sound so...afraid. After all, mice in his world are quite removed from reality. To him, they all take ballet class, or are detectives, or have Grandma's who bake them chocolate chip cookies. They are not disease carrying vermin that make your mother scream in terror nor are they murdered by your own beloved house pet.

He doesn't really know what to do, but he looks at me sadly and says: "I think he wants his Mommy."

Seizing the opportunity to avoid any sort of discussion about death, I say quite loudly so Eric can hear. "Yes! He wants his mommy and when we get back from the store, I'm sure your DADDY will MAKE SURE that the mousey gets back to his MOTHER so he can go to his bed and sleep THERE. "

Kieran was satisfied with this and climbed happily into the van. He mentioned several times at the store that he wanted to go home and see the "mousey" (which suddenly turned into going home to see the "bunny" but I can see how he would be confused. They all dress the same and go to the same school).

Anyway, Daddy did help the mouse find his mommy (well, as long as his mommy lives under the hedges 10 feet away) and Kieran is none the wiser.

Crisis averted. For now.

It's Summer!!

Summertime is the official reason I am giving to explain my longish absence from this space. I'm outside living the dream, folks. (Does that sound better than the reality, which may or may not be that I spent my computer time - some call it a workday - reading recaps of The Bachelorette?)

June flew by. Kieran turned three and we had an excellent party (by three year old standards at least). I prefer my parties to have considerably more beer and less escorting of three year olds to the bathroom. Anyway, he received a trampoline as a birthday gift, which he loves. I quickly realized that the trampoline, since it is completely enclosed by a large safety net, should really be marketed for its other latent purpose...a huge bouncing playpen. I can zip both kids up inside and putter around the yard and neither of them is aware that they are safely caged. (Kieran, who weighs all of 27 pounds doesn't have enough weight on him for his jumps to do more than lightly jiggle his little sister and even that light bouncing is enough to make her giggle uncontrollably.) We now call it the Trapoline (TM) and my garden is practically weed-free! Talk about a gift that keeps on giving.

We also just returned yesterday from a lovely week-long vacation in Massachusetts. The week started off with rain and more rain. Crazy downpours and nonstop drizzle. And just when we thought we had exhausted all rainy-day activities (otherwise known as shopping and eating and a semi-disastrous trip to the Boston Aquarium along with the entire population of the Eastern Seaboard), the rain cleared and we had nothing but heat and sun. Perfect really.

My children, as it turns out, are fantastic road-trippers. Not to sound like a broken record on the Kaya front, but the kid was happy as a sunny little clam during our 11 hour drive (both ways). Kieran is more demanding, but still really good. Just usual requests for juice or snacks and the occasional urgent need to pee, which necessitated one illegal roadside pullover and an Austin Power's comedy-length stream of urine.

I do want to take a moment to comment on my three year old. Maybe this is common and I have just been oblivious to this in other children, but I swear when he turned three he turned into a new kid. For the vast majority of his short life (certainly much longer than the terrible twos), he has been predictably awful around people. Not necessarily just new people or strangers, but pretty much anyone who wasn't Eric or I. He had a tendency to be whiny and difficult and I often felt like I was making excuses for him. (He's tired, he's hungry, etc. etc). But that kid seems to be more or less gone. Sure he has moments (you know, when he's ACTUALLY hungry or tired) but he's a lot happier these days. I am happy with the trajectory and am totally OK with it continuing on this way until he is nothing but charming and joyful all the time.

I do hate returning from vacation though. Our house, small as it is, always seems five times as cramped when we get back and have bags and coolers strewn everywhere waiting to be unpacked. Blech. That more or less what I have too look forward to tonight.

Although, more likely, if you need me, I'll be out on the Trapoline.

Lights, Camera...That's my Baby!

So, you know how every time they interview the parents of some kid on American Idol they always say how their child has always loved to sing and, in fact, was singing before they could talk? If I thought much about that statement at all (which I usually didn't) I would have thought that was more or less impossible. We've all suffered through enough of those hideous audition shows to know that the ability to carry a tune is most definitely NOT a given.


Except, now I have that kid. Kaya, who still has not graduated much further past the already blogged about "Duh!" for duck, sings a semi- complete version of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in baby gibberish - even mimicking the words. I noticed this late last week when she was sitting on the floor singing to herself. Now singing, I think for a 14-month-old, probably isn't ALL that unusual. Except then I thought for a second that I recognized the tune, but I dismissed it as sort of impossible. After all, despite me waving her bottle in her face 4 times a day and saying "Want your bottle? Say Bottle. Bottle. BOT-TLE. BOTTLE!" I can get this child to repeat almost nothing. So, I have more or less, sort of dismissed her as any sort of prodigy.


Then it happened again and again and again. And she did it for Eric too. She is most definitely singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Kieran is slightly put out since he considered that "his" song - but now they can sing it together.

Already, I'm thinking of taking her on tour, if anyone is interested. Or maybe we'll get our own show. Clearly there is massive money to be made by pimping out half-Asian toddlers. (I'm talking to YOU John and Kate...clearly your moment in the sun is nearly over.).


We just need to start working on her wardrobe (goodbye onesies and bucket hats, hello peekaboo sequin baby halter tops), stage presence (its never to early to learn to shake, shake, shake that booty). And I'm thinking maybe she needs a baby toupee (you know, the kind that everyone was accusing Tom Cruise of putting on his baby on the cover of Vanity Fair a few years ago). Right now, she looks more like Riff Raff from Rocky Horror Picture Show than Beyonce.


Don't worry I'm on it, people. Rest assured, I will not squander this opportunity to make money off my child.

Deep Dark Secrets

So, I stumbled across a blog the other day. The title of post I landed on was something like True Confessions, and the writer was asking the readers to post anonymously their deepest secrets. Things that they might never admit to out loud. The results were kind of scary. The confessions ranged from the ever-popular-and-predictable "I'm cheating on my husband" to "My husband died last year and I am secretly glad."

There was the one that made me snicker: "I lied and told my high school boyfriend I was pregnant to try to trap him and instead he gave me $300 for an abortion. I took the money and went to Florida for Spring Break."

There were also quite a few that were neither mundane nor funny, just horrible. ("I feel my son is not supposed to be alive and I wonder if I am subconsciously going to a make this happen.") And some were extreme enough to make me wonder if they were fake. Well, nobody admitted to murder or any crime...the confessions were more of personal and/moral nature.

It made me think about what I would write and really, I don't have all that much, if anything these days. I will be the first to admit that I am quite boring (which might quality as a confession, but certainly isn't a secret. )

My own secrets might range from the food-related - something like "I let Kieran eat chips for breakfast" or "I have wine gums stashed in the freezer."

Or maybe my confession might be the relatively unattainable: "I know I have said I was finished having kids, but I would like to have (E-Host) Joel McHale's baby."

I don't know. I guess I'd be happier if every one's deepest secrets were letting their children eat crap for breakfast (You do, right?) or to have a D-List celebrity's baby. The world would undoubtedly be a better place. Funnier at least.

Oh Woe is Us. (AKA, The Troubling Tale of the Baby in the Van)

My lapses in timely posts are almost always due to two things: illness and or pure lethargy. Since I have returned to work (and my children back to the germpool otherwise known as daycare) we have had far too much of the former. Really, it seems like every time I turn around someone is coughing and feverish or...something.

But this time was a doozy.

I'll be brief because I'm not quite self-centred enough to think that people want to read a minute by minute account of the week of vomit, but it started innocently enough with Kaya throwning up all over the kitchen floor mere seconds before we left for daycare last Friday. By the time Eric and I had pulled into his parking lot at work an hour later, the babysitter had called to say Kaya had barfed twice more and that was their limit, so I turned around and went home.

Downhill from there, to say the least. The baby seemed a bit better on Saturday...we had a fair amount of socializing on the weekend...family members from out of town, a BBQ at our house with friends and their three kids, yada, yada, yada. A few days later and all innocence is lost. People around us have dropped like flies from this little stomach bug, so please accept this as a blanket apology to all who know us and who may be cursing our very name.

I started to feel violently ill during our BBQ - the friends we had invited over were people I did not know well so I didn't really feel like telling them that the reason I was leaving for the bathroom every 10 minutes was NOT due to my raging coke habit like they surely must have presumed. (Although I was pretty good at using the baby as a shield...she needs a jacket! A diaper! A bottle!)

The night ended, well...it never really did end. But as I was lying on our bathroom floor in the wee hours of Monday morning, wondering if there was any point in dragging myself back to bed (there wasn't) these are the things, in no particular order, that I was thinking:

"Please don't let this violent retching wake-up the baby." Naturally, this was followed immediately by a plaintive and increasingly insistent "WaaaaaaaAAAA" from her bedroom.

"Oh! I'm so glad that we had company tonight! Aside from the fact that I was practically barfing into their laps, this bathroom is really freaking clean." This thought is a pleasant change from any other time that I can remember sleeping on bathroom floors (usually in my university years) in which the thoughts were more along the lines of...is that black thing on the floor over there alive?

"Hmmmm....that particular shade of vomit is the EXACT colour I had hoped Eric would paint the bedroom last summer." Which, for those of you who might be interested. is a greyish blue colour that emerges from the innards somewhere after bile, but before dry heaves.

That's really just the tip of the iceberg, but as I'm sure most of us can attest, when doubled over with a hideous virus most rational thought is well...absent.

To make matters worse, much worse, a few short hours later Eric had taken up residence in the bathroom and I had moved back to the bed.

In fact, rational thought was absent for the next 36 hours at least. On Tuesday, I thought that since I was feeling marginally better I should go back to work.

A rather large mistake actually.

I was packing the kids up for babysitter, Eric was still sick, and I went out to the van with Kaya, the daycare bag, my purse, etc. As I was wrestling with everything and getting Kaya in the car seat, I put everything on the floor of the van. Kieran was yelling something at me from the steps of the house and so I was talking to him, finished buckling in Kaya and slammed the door shut.

In the second that I did that, I realized that the car keys - I had grabbed Eric's from the table beside the door to save myself from digging mine out from the bottom of my purse - were on the floor of the van. And the van doors had inexplicably locked. And my purse , with MY KEYS was also now locked inside the van as well. Along with the baby.

I did what any other rational person would do. Or at least, I mean anyone who hadn't eaten, drank or slept for almost 48 hours. Someone who was still nauseous, headachey and in no condition to be driving, going to work or looking after children and who has just realized that they have locked their one-year-old in the car with no way to get her out. I totally lost it.

I was bawling and freaking out. Kaya, who seemed to of course immediately realize her peril, was also screaming inside the van. Kieran was just totally freaked out at what was going on and kept telling me that my keys were in my pocket (they weren't).

Anyway, Eric called CAA. Thankfully, they do consider a baby locked in a car to be an "emergency" and said they would have someone there in 15 minutes. I continued to freak out for the next 10 minutes, trying to knock on the van window and get poor Kaya to stop wailing. Anyway, the next thing I know, Eric walks out of the house with my car keys. I have never been so happy. They were, strangely enough on the fireplace mantel and I have zero recollection of putting them there or why they would be there, but at least they were.

Crisis past. Baby was rescued. No need to call the authorities on the poor parenting (in this instance at least...)

We're all better now but, let me go find some wood to knock on.

Space for Rant

Now that I am back in the "real world" (as opposed to the temporary fake world of play dates and nap times) I feel like I am assaulted by Pop Culture Reality. I guess because since I currently spent my daytime hours sitting at a desk with ample access to the Internet, with a huge TV right beside me, and grown-ups (well...maybe that's a stretch, but I mean that as a compliment to my co-workers) to converse with on a reliable basis I am more in touch with world at large.

And guess what? Real life is damned annoying.

Twitter, Dancing with the Stars, Swine Flu, People in the Tim Horton's lineup who order coffees and breakfast for the entire office. people asking me if I'm pregnant (or going to be), Jon and Kate Plus 8. These are just some of the things that now irk me on a highly regular basis.

In fact, I'm going to add Twitter to the list again because it's the most annoying and ubiquitous of all. Twitter was quite entertaining when it was only funny people who tweeted (God, did I just use that word? Kill me now). But now everybody is tweeting (retch), celebrities, teenagers, bloggers, journalists, the elderly. I live in mortal fear that one day I'm going to get an email from my mom telling me to "follow her on Twitter!". (Which is almost as frightening as the mere thought that she might one day find this blog. Almost.).

Dancing with the Stars I just don't, and never will, get. I'm not going to debate the lax and inappropriate use of the word "stars" (I'm sure there are tweets (gah!) galore on that subject). It's just the fact that it , along with its (to me at least) slightly less annoying cousin, American Idol, are actually covered on the news. As if it were actual news, people. The local morning radio segues right from Tamil protests into Adam Lambert clips. Its a bit alarming really.

The Tim Horton's people are just things that I had forgotten about while I was gone. I, along with just about everyone else in the country, go there on a semi-regular basis for my morning coffee and Tim's (at rush hour at least), is a well-oiled morning mat-cheen. Even the addition of a myriad of breakfast foods hasn't really slowed down the rush hour, the line moves quite swiftly with lightly toasted 12 grain bagels arriving in patrons hands mere seconds after their double doubles. Until you notice some schmuck ahead of you in line holding a piece of paper and the feeling of dread and annoyance settles in. Long lists of individual prepared coffees and breakfast sandwiches bog down the entire system, especially since, let's be honest, most people who are sent out to fetch large coffee orders are seldom the companies most efficient, indispensable employees. It's the interns and the newbies who are slow to count money and usually forget to ask for a receipt. It can throw off the entire day.

Anyway, it had been awhile since I had used this blog space to truly rant about the inane. Glad I got that all off my chest.

Now, off to enjoy the long weekend!!!

What Little Boys are Made Of

So, we're in the middle of our weekday scramble to get out the door in the morning. Eric is off getting the Papaya dressed and I'm busying getting the kids daycare bag together. Bottles. Asthma puffer. Hats. Sunblock. All Check.

Kieran has put on his sandals and gathered up Spunky and is standing near the door impatiently wanting to go outside. Suddenly he runs over to the door, bangs it open and leans outside.

Me: "What are you doing?"

Him: "Spitting."

Me: "What?! Spitting?! We don't open the door and spit outside. Ever!!! That's yucky!"

Long pause. Kieran stares at me blankly, clearly trying to process something.

Him: "Sooooo I spit inside on the floor?"

Ah Little Boys. Apparently, if they aren't peeing on the toilet seats and laughing at fart noises they are horking out the door. Snips and snails and puppy-dog tails indeed.

I look over at Kaya, who has emerged from her bedroom with Eric, in her jaunty denim jacket with the embroidered flowers and a little tuft of hair tied neatly in a pink band. She is all clean and shiny for the day ahead. She's too young obviously to be anything other than pure sugar and spice, but I hope it holds.

Because, for the record, I HATE fart jokes.

But the Levy Was Dry. Also known as the 100th Post!!

So, my blog manager thingy tells me that this is my 100th post. Very exciting. So exciting in fact, that anything I write will obviously be a major letdown. So, really, I apologize in advance for not living up to the 100th post hype.

It was a lovely weekend. I went out BOTH Fiday and Saturday nights, which may be a first since Kieran's birth back in 2006. It would also explain why I'm so tired today...I'm not used to such late nights. I mean, I think I was out until 11PM two nights in a row. Pass the Red Bull, I can barely keep my eyes open...

Kieran wanted to be outside all day yesterday which was totally fine. Last spring was hard because he was just turning two and if I didn't watch him 100 per cent of time he would either be careening uncontrollably down the driveway on his bike, or once he gained control, he'd be on the sidewalk, but halfway down the street flash. Now that he understands the meaning of words like "dangerous" and "ambulance" I don't really worry about him riding out onto the street as much.

His newfound obedience was nice because it gave me time to turn my attention to getting my garden ready and also our total disgrace of a lawn. I fail to understand why our lawn is always a giant weed-patch while almost everyone else's on the street has sprung up like a lush, green blanket. I assume they must have years of experience in lawn maintenance that I just lack, but we went into the backyard and overnight it seems there are weird weeds that are as tall as the Papaya (who is probably as tall as three ACTUAL papayas). Those are tall weeds. So, while the kids were playing around I went to work pulling up Dandelions and other pesky things.

Now, our backyard in the spring is an odd place. Before all the trees have their leaves and the shrubs have filled out, I can see quite clearly into both next door neighbours yards. As I may have mentioned before, both of our next door neighbours and the house directly behind us all have pools. The house behind us has a sloped backyard, so what they have apparently done is put in an above-ground pool and then built a huge raised deck around it to give it the appearance of an in-ground pool when you walk outside their patio doors. However, this raised deck means that they are standing level with the top of the fence. It's always jarring in the spring when they are out on their yard/deck and looking down at us as though we are polar bears at the zoo.

Last summer there was a young couple with a two year old daughter in that house. A few months ago the house went up for sale and the new owners are, apparently, a young couple with a two -year old daughter. They were also outside yesterday (scoffing down at our embarrassing weed-infested back yard, no doubt) and listening to music. When we first went back there, they were listening to the song American Pie, which I've always considered to be more of a summer-time campfire song than a spring-cleaning song, but, whatever. However, the longer we stayed in the backyard I realized that American Pie was the ONLY song they were playing. Like, it was on repeat. For an hour. Maybe longer because I could tell that Kaya was getting sleepy to the repetitive sounds of the Chevy driving to that stupid Levy for the what must of been the kabillionth time and, oddly, I was dying for a whisky and rye.

So, back inside we go. It's gonna be long summer....

Pandemic, Eh?

So, I realize that the health complaints I was experiencing last week (fever, chills, sore throat, extraordinary fatigue) are on the list of Swine Flu symptoms. I feel 100 per cent now (OK, 99 %), but perhaps we should put me down to Ground Zero of the Canadian pandemic?

Naturally, the media is all over this story. Ad nauseam like everything else. If I recall anything from SARS, it's that the media loves a good burgeoning pandemic. Toronto, as you may recall, was hit quite hard by SARS several years ago, and hit even harder by SARS-related panic. The Chinese origination of the disease made all local Chinese Canadians - and probably anyone looking vaguely Asianish - quite suspect. Poor Eric couldn't even clear his throat in public without people glaring and pulling out their Purell. At least this time, we can turn our (hopefully) irrational fears onto spring-breakers who just spent 7 days guzzling Coronas at a Cancun all-inclusive.

One upside to SARS, (a very, very narrowly-focused upside, mind you) was that our company made a LOT of money. When your job is providing facilities and equipment to visiting news agencies and networks, crisis events like that tend to make the company's soul-less bean counters very happy. Ours and the aforementioned Purell executives were probably the only people that were privately rejoicing at every new outbreak.

Anyway, here we go again. If you need a camera crew or a feed point let me know. Otherwise, please don't cough in my general direction. Especially all you tanned, rested travellers. This time, we are targetting you.

The Duck

Kaya doesn't really say any words yet. I know that by his first birthday Kieran was already pointing at cars and saying, quite definitively, "Cah!" but Kaya doesn't have any predictable words. And she's way past a year old already, I mean, it's been like almost 10 days since her birthday.

So, last night I decided to take matters into my own hands, speaking-wise. Kaya's splashing around in the tub, loving her bath as usual.

I hold up a rubber duck.

Me: "Kaya! It's a duck! Can you say DUCK?"

Papaya: "Duh!"

Me: "Right! Duck! Very Good!"

Papaya: "Duh! Duh! Duh!"

Me: "Yay! Duck! OK, here's a boat, say BOAT."

Papaya: "Duh! Duh!"

Me "No, boat, with a B. BOAT."

Papaya: "Duh!"

Me: "OK, how about book. Can you say book? Say BOOK."

Papaya: "Duh!"

Me: "Oh forget it."

Papaya: "Duh!"

The New Normal??

I've had this post sitting in draft status for about a week now. I can't seem to put a coherent thought together lately. I'm finding the adjustment back to work to be bit harder than I expected.

So, I think I've been back to work now for about 3 and a half weeks. So, yeah...this is it. The rest of my life. It just seems really hectic. We're still working on a decent routine - one that gets Eric to work on time in the morning and get us both home at night in time for have some sort of life. So far, all of that has been fairly elusive. The mornings have been more or less OK (not the total nightmare I expected) it's the evenings that are chaos. Dinner. Crying. Dishes. Bath. Kids to Bed. Clean the House. Workout. Collapse. Blech. Not enough hours in the day. Not enough sleep at night.

All of this is compounded by the fact that I'm a bit of a physical mess. As you may recall on my third day back at work I snapped my neck. It has taken me several weeks to get back to normal. After my neck went, it was followed by equally bizarre back spasms (which weren't quite as debilitating as the neck thing but were still horrible.)

Then, last week I was hit (as was Kieran) with some sort of seemingly malaria-like fatigue issues. I could not say awake past 9:30 at night and could barely drag myself out of bed in the morning, which has since morphed into a mini-flu. I have a low-grade fever that leaves me feeling like crap, but still able to go to work.

I'm assuming these issues will all resolve themselves. I remember being quite sick when I came back to work after my mat leave with Kieran, but this adjustment has been harder I think.

Also, seriously, enough of this stupid cold weather!!!!

One Year Old

Today is Kaya' s First Birthday. We have not bought her any gifts, which I sort of feel badly about. In my defence...we went out looking for something for her, but I couldn't find anything that I thought she would love. The Easter Bunny did leave her some presents yesterday, although he mistakenly bought sidewalk chalk because he thought they were big baby-sized crayons. Bunny needs glasses.

Of course, we did celebrate her birthday properly(well it was a family Easter/birthday dinner) so she did get lots of gifts from other people. I made her a little bumble-bee cake. The bee was sitting upright in front of a miniature regular birthday cake with a candle on top. At least, that was how the cake was when I finished decorating it and prior to lifting into the box. When I went to lower it into the box the cardboard cake board folded in the middle, smashing the little purple birthday cake into the bee's face and belly. I managed to salvage/repair the bee, but the mini-cake was a goner. Of course, Kaya did not care and I realized as she shovelled handfuls of cake covered in yellow and black icing that most people do not give their one-year olds black icing for the first birthday. I am not one of those mothers. We have lots of photos of my little one-year old looking like a baby goth.

Happy Birthday Kaya Papaya!

Robaxa-bot

So, I'm back at work. As I suspected it's been a bit chaotic, but nothing out of control and I'm sure we'll find a groove and go with it. We need to work out a reliable morning routine but otherwise it's been painless.

Or I should say, its been painless in the non-physical sense, at least. Actual physical pain? Lots of that.

You know how sometimes you sleep funny and when you wake up in the morning your neck is sore and you can't turn your head? Multiply that by about 500 and you have me today.

Last night at three am, I innocently turned my head on my pillow whilst fast asleep and I swear to God, my neck snapped. All of a sudden there was a shooting pain radiating from the side of my neck down my shoulder and into my back and up into my head and brain. I would have sat bolt upright in my bed in agony except that would have required upper body movement and at the moment I was quite paralyzed.

I finally whimpered my way out of bed and clawed my way to the kitchen where I tried to down some ibuprofen but I couldn't properly put my head back to swallow the pills so I just sort of gagged them down and hoped for the best.

I would have called in sick but it's only my third day back and I just couldn't be that much of a wimp. So this morning we unearthed some muscle relaxants in the cupboard and I sat patiently in a chair waiting from them to kick in while Eric got the kids ready to go. (Which, obviously, was the most enjoyable part of my day thus far). The bottle said the pills were good for neck spasms but all they did was make me sleepy, nauseous and did a great of job of relaxing my tongue but did nothing to the huge knot in my shoulder.

It's actually a bit better at work. Thank you Ergonomic desk chair for holding my spine exactly where it should be. As long as I don't have to turn my head in any direction I can pass for a normal person and not a robot. I may have to wheel this baby home with me tonight in order to get some decent sleep.

I've decided that I'm going to blame the change in routine for my current state of agony, even though its probably not related. But it makes me feel better to think that. Otherwise, I might have to admit that its age-related or something depressing like that. No, I won't go there.

Stupid office job. This is your fault.

Frazzled

So, in a few short hours I will be officially off maternity leave. I am feeling stressed about it, but if I recall from when I returned to work after Kieran, I'm pretty sure it will all be fine.

Still, I had last week off to get myself organized and integrate the kids into full time daycare. The days were a bit shorter for them than they will be from here on out, but they did pretty well. As for me? Not so much.

I tried to cram lots of stuff into last week. Vet appointments (fleas), my yearly physical (fleas), running lots of errands, cleaning etc. On Friday, I had to get my blood work done (just for a physical folks, please trust me that I'm not pregnant) so I was sort of in a rush to get the kids out the door, get the medical stuff done and then have the rest of my day to myself - no cleaning, no errands. I was feeling a bit frazzled, but got the kids dropped off and then went to the blood lab to take my place in line behind about 30 people. Awesome.

Then my cell phone rang. I had sent Kaya to daycare without a diaper on. I still have no idea how this is possible. She had on a onesie, pants and shirt. No diaper. The babysitter was calling to make fun of me (although, I think she may have been a bit worried about my state of mind).

Anyway, I finish giving blood and then, since I had been required to fast for the tests, I hit the Tim Horton's drive thru. I pulled in, sped RIGHT past the little speaker and drove right up to the window without ordering anything. The guy working the window just looked at me like I was new on the planet.

Me: "Uhhhh, guess I missed the ordering part, huh?"

Guy: "Sure did."

It wasn't even 1030 am and I had two people questioning my sanity, so I went home. I was thinking of doing a bit of shopping, but it suddenly seemed risky.

Hopefully, I get my act together and tomorrow morning is a breeze. Diapers and all.

This Post is Making me Itchy

I have a decidedly love-hate relationship with our cats. Well, I should say cat (singular) since we are down to one.

We decided around Christmas that enough with enough. We had two kids on asthma puffers...one of whom had been on his puffer continuously for several months. Sassy was ramping up her urinary protest at the misery of her life by peeing every single day in Eric's gym...which as his clients will gladly tell you, is absolutely NO way to run a business.

Sassy now lives happily with another owner, whose carpets are still apparently pee-free.

Our other cat, Wesley, who still resides in our house, is quite a different story. We discovered after we moved into this house that keeping him indoors was an impossibility. He's superfast and wily. The second the door is opened he'd be out like a shot...although sometimes if my reflexes were fast enough I could throw my foot out and wedge his skull against the doorjamb, but, obviously he'd howl protest, and the second you'd let up he'd be halfway down the street. So, eventually we learned to embrace his outdoorsiness and I learned (sort of, but not really) to tolerate the parade of dead birds and mice that turn up on my doorstep.

But when he's indoors he is a wonderful cat. You couldn't ask for a better animal around kids...he has infinite patience with both babies and two-year-olds, and, in fact,not only does he not mind his fur being yanked and eyes being poked, he seems to actively seek it out. On many occasions he will curl up in Kieran's lap and I'll catch them napping together on the couch.

Anyway, the kids haven't been on their asthma puffers since Christmas, so that is a good sign. And we are down to one cat, which is surely helping, but Wesley has one big problem that still drives me crazy.

You know how when you go camping or to the cottage with a group of people and there is always one person who the mosquitoes loves more than anyone else? While everyone else is roasting weenies on the fire there is invariably that poor sod next to you, continually slapping and scratching and slathering on as much DEET as possible, Cancer-be-damned? Well, were Wesley a person...he'd be that guy. Only not with mosquitoes with fleas.

Wesley is a fleabag. When I would take both cats to the vet Wesley usually had fleas and Sassy didn't. Last year, just after Kaya was born and Wesley had reverted to his outdoor ways, I remember looking down at her in my arms and seeing a flea crawl across her head. Since at that point I was still counting her age in DAYS for God sake, I had to beg the vet to sell me the flea stuff without paying for a full check up, which is apparently "illegal" but they took pity on me and my newborn.

Anyway, here we go again... only this year, I know the fleas are back because they are attacking ME. Its brutal. I have a bites all over me and I'm scratching like crazy. I had a Dr appointment yesterday and she asked me what was going on. Do you KNOW how embarrassing it is to tell your Doctor that you have fleas?? So, back to the vet we went yesterday to start him back on medication which we are now going to keep him on year round.

I should mention that I am the only one in the house the fleas go for. Eric and kids are both totally bite free. Although sometimes watching me scratch makes Eric paranoid but there is no evidence of him being bitten. Me...I'm the only loser around the campfire in this house.

So, love/hate. Kieran would be very sad if Wesley were to go. I would be a lot less sad, and a lot less itchy. But, assuming the kids grow out of their asthma, the flea thing is his only flaw. Wesley doesn't even bother with the litterbox inside for most of the year. All he needs is a bag of $5 Friskies and water and he's good to go. Practically maintenance-free!

Anyway, for now he's staying. Fleas and all.

Frig, I'm itchy.

Limping towards the end....

So, it's Tuesday now and I have exactly 6 days left on maternity leave (including today). It's a bit shocking that an entire year has flown by...but on the other hand, as I've mentioned, I'm ready to go back.

I thought I was being quite smart by putting both kids in full-time daycare starting this week. It would theoretically give me 5 child-free days to clean the house, get organized and just relax a bit before I throw myself back into the 9-5 life, but of course, I should have realized that since this is MY life nothing ever QUITE works out to my benefit.

The kids have been on and off sick for the past month, at least. Last week, Kieran had a pretty nasty cold. Then on Sunday, Kaya slept in quite late and at first I was quite happy to be sleeping in myself since I had also caught Kieran's cold, but when I went in to get her, she was awake and burning up at a temperature of 105.2 degrees. Poor baby. Of course, this meant that yesterday she missed her first day of daycare and I missed one day (so far) of my child free week. It ended up not really mattering since this cold is brutal and I could barely function myself but I was down to FOUR child free days.

Today, Tuesday....I still feel lousy and need to get some sleep but I dropped both kids off. Kaya seemed fine (ish) so I wasn't going to waste another day. Although after I update this I most likely am going to take a nap. So, there goes day 2 of my child-free week.

Also, I've been trying to get myself back into at least the general ballpark of my pre-baby weight. It's been hard to find the time to work out since the only reliable time slot available in the gym is from 10-11 pm. I eventually came to the realization that nothing was going to ever magically happen that would allow me work out during the day or evening and that, if I wanted to establish a routine, that 10 pm was going to be "my time."

And since poor Eric usually finishes training his clients at 10 I don't really have the heart to ask him to put aside another hour for me, but I was feeling like I needed structure and a plan so I decided to order the videos from The Firm. I thought the video plan was quite smart since although I don't usually mind waiting until 10 pm to work out in our own gym, its nice to have the option of working out earlier upstairs if the kids are in bed.

I ordered the package in January - it was a whole kit which included a variety of DVDs and free-weights. The kit arrived in time...but there were no videos inside. So I called and they said they would send the 5 missing DVDs right out and that it would take 4 weeks. Annoying, I know. Especially since the clock was ticking on my return to work. 4 weeks go by and I call and am told that its actually 4-6 weeks plus an extra week to get to Canada. So after about the seven week mark I call again and tell them that its pretty clear the videos are NOT coming. They said they will send them out express and that I'll get them in 7-10 days (plus that extra week for Canada!). This would have put the arrival at some time LAST week. So sure enough, on Friday when nothing arrives, I call and they tell me that the package will most likely be delivered on Monday. So, low and behold when Monday rolls around, I open the mailbox there is my package. I was quite pleased. Until I opened it and it's the WRONG video set. They send the DVD set for their OTHER kit which requires some balance board type thing (which of course I don't have, so these videos are totally useless to me.)

So, I pick up the phone and have a terrible time restraining myself from calling the entire company a band of complete idiots. Really...how stupid are these people? I told her that maybe it would just be easier if they gave me my money back, but she said that they would ship out the correct videos right away and that they would credit my account. Ten dollars. (Whoo Hoo! Who wants a coffee?!) Whatever. I said OK that I would wait ONE more time. Although now I'm sure I'll be talking to them in 7-10 days, plus one week for Canada. Morons.

The Dream House

It's pretty clear to us, and everybody else, that our house is too small. It was probably too small when we bought it, but in the three years since we moved in we have managed to outgrow these four walls in a relatively spectacular fashion.

I remember when we were house hunting the first time. Our budget would have been decent in many cities except ours and every place we looked at required some kind of major compromise. Basically, if we wanted a nice area in a good school district the houses in our price range were basic and usually in need of a complete overhaul. The closer we looked to downtown (where both Eric and I work) the smaller and smaller the houses got, so we had to just keep moving farther in the 'burbs until we landed so far west in Mississauga we are a mere stone's throw from Oakville.

At the time, we were thinking of putting an offer on a sidesplit in our neighbourhood, but the backyard, though huge, was taken up by a pool and I was newly pregnant and looking for a safe backyard for toddler play, not a yard that would keep me awake at night wondering if Kieran, who I was just pregnant with, was jimmying the locks to get out of the house where he would accidentally drown himself. The other downfall to the house? It had a dreaded number 4 in the house number.

If you are familiar in any way with Chinese superstitions you will understand the tragedy of this occurrence. Apparently, the word for the number 4 in Chinese, sounds the same as the word "death" in Chinese and, as such, no self-respecting person of Chinese descent (even a total banana like Eric) would EVER buy a house with a 4 in the number unless they were willing to endure a lifetime of misfortune. And since we were already loaded down with some iffy karma based on a radical (to put in mildly) split from Eric's family (the story of which is too sordid for this blog and even if I were to share I doubt the internet has enough bandwidth for me to properly describe those shenanigans) we decided it would be unwise to anger the Asian Gods any further that we already had. So any and all houses with 4's were struck off the list, usually sight unseen.

So, to make a long story short, we ended up in our three bedroom, one bathroom bungalow on a quiet street in an OK neighbourhood with a huge backyard and lots of trees and the Chinese neutral number of 2355. Now, three years, two kids and one gym later we are dying for more space.

Recently, Eric had started hearing at work about a bunch of people buying and selling houses and getting unbelievable mortgage rates. He mentions it to a client of his who says he has a fantastic finance wizard who can help us figure out what we can afford. And with that the ball is rolling. In short order, we've talked to both the mortgage broker and the bank about what we need and how to get there. I even went so far as to meet with the bank to go over some details and as it turns out we can make a drastic upgrade from where we are now and ended up paying the SAME as we are now. So far, so good.

Market-wise now is the time to buy. Season-wise, spring is the time to both buy and sell. The problem? On a personal side, the timing is actually quite horrible. I'm back at work in two weeks after having been on maternity leave for an entire year, so we haven't exactly be saving up for closing costs and moving expenses. When I go back, a large chunk of the money I make will be forked over to our daycare provider.

However, since the ball is rolling, we decided to roll with a little further and since we have kept in touch with our real estate agent we gave her a call and, naturally in no time flat she was sending us listings. Don't let anyone tell you, by the by, that houses are not selling and prices are falling. Judging from the "standing room only" situations at a couple of Open Houses we stopped at, it is clear that the market is hot and, at least on paper, our own house has increased significantly in value (although we have done quite a few upgrades, so I hope so.)

I was apprehensive though about actually going out to look at houses. I didn't want to get sucked into the urge to buy before we were ready, but on the other hand, we wanted to see what was out there. Besides, we sooo aren't ready that buying right now isn't even really an option, so it seemed pretty harmless. And it was. The first three houses we saw, which were all in the different areas, had the exact same layout. I realize that when you head into the 4 bedroom home market in the suburbs, every house is depressing similar. The worst part, of course, is that this apparently so-popular-all-houses-have-it-layout is not even a layout that I remotely like nor would ever buy. I'm all about flow and feng shui and open concept not choppy rooms, sweeping staircases and ridiculously over-sized master bedrooms (although don't get me wrong, I want a bigger bedroom...I just don't need one that could sleep an entire village in Africa). So, after leaving the third house I was relieved that we hadn't found a house that I would remotely consider buying but also disappointed that these cookie-cutter houses might be our destiny. As we followed our agent to the last house I said to Eric wistfully "I just want to walk into a house and be excited."

And then we pull up in front of My Dream Home.

From the second I stood on the porch I knew I loved this house. More than loved it. If I could have designed a house to my own specifications, this would have come close. Among my first words once we stepped inside: "Oh my God, Oh my God." Pause. "I want this house." But I was also colossally disappointed, because, although within our budget, there was no way we could buy that house right now and worse, there was no way it was going to sit for a few months while we get our act together.

As we were leaving, the homeowner was coming up his perfect manicured walkway and we asked him a few questions...he was not only clearly the handiest of handymen, he was also a perfectionist with attention to detail. He answered our questions, said he was absolutely in no rush to move and would be willing to wait....except, he had to tell us, that there was an offer coming on the house at 5 pm that day. I was torn between the feeling of horror that someone else was going to buy my dream home and relief. I knew it wasn't even an option anyway, so at least this way, there was no need to go home and lose sleep over it (which I did anyway). We drove away, past the perfect little park two houses down where I could see my kids playing already.

What really made me mad about that whole thing, was up until we toured my Dream House, I was actually feeling pretty good about our little bungalow again. It's small, but in many ways the layout totally works for us. Bedrooms on the main floor are quite convenient and the main rooms are open so I can see the kids playing in the family room while I make dinner or do the dishes. There is also a side entrance with stairs that go straight downstairs so Eric's clients come in and out unseen and we have put in a new bathroom beside the gym so nobody has to come upstairs to my bathroom that may or may not have a pantsless two-year-old spraying pee on the floor. None of the houses we saw - including the Dream House - had basement access from the outside.

Anyway, I'm assuming my Dream House has been sold. Seeing my reaction, I think our agent felt quite bad for even bringing us there, but on the upside, she said that it will happen again, there will be OTHER dream homes that come up when we are ready. She was certain of it. And now we start the process of sprucing up and decluttering (ha!) in order to get this place looking roomy and sellable.

In the end, despite seeing and losing my Dream House in the space of a half-hour , we had another breakthrough. The Dream House? Which we both loved? It was house number 1401...and even with that dastardly lurking 4, Eric was willing to overlook it. At least he said he was, which, although he reserves the right to change his mind, is progress.

The Countdown Begins...

So, its official. I'm pretty much counting the days until I go back to work. Which is March 30 for those who may be interested in counting with me.

In general, staying at home with 2 year old and an infant has been OK. There are somethings I love about being home with the kids but, overall, Mama needs a break. With Eric working more or less 7 days a week, every week, I am going a bit crazy. There are times, when I think I can feel my brain turning mushy. As mushy as...something. See, the old me would have been able to find something vaguely clever that her brain would be as mushy as...but all I can think of now is a long list of baby-related mushy things...like the pieces of banana that get tossed from the highchair and land in the MOST annoying places and then have to be cleaned up only to have the entire process start all over again.

You can probably even detect my lethargy from the dearth of blog posts. I keep thinking "who wants to read about my kids being sick (which they both are AGAIN)" and there just isn't much else. That and Eric's band had a long break during February due to some of his bandmates having actual vacations (of which I can only dare to dream) and I typically update my blog on weekend nights when I'm home by myself and am feeling too cheap to order a movie from Rogers On Demand. (Although we rented one last night...Ghost Town. See it!)

On the upside. I think we hit 17 degrees today! This is a pleasant turn of events. I'm sure, naturally, that we will plunge back down into another deep freeze any second, but today was an excellent day. Eric and I even managed to clean out our hideous carport which we pretend is a garage and store things in and then are routinely shocked when said things become ruined. Today, we went to the garbage dump to drop off our old mud-covered highchair and our old stroller, which had first rusted shut and then, after Eric broke it trying to force it open, rusted open. (Although since my dad fixed our carport roof last fall things are getting ruined a much slower pace...)

Also, Sassy is gone. To a good home without children or a continual parade of sweaty strangers. After a particularly horrible stretch where she peed every single day in Eric's gym, we decided it was time to call the Humane Society. But before we arranged to drop her off, someone answered Eric's last Facebook plea. She apparently hadn't seen any of his previous ones ...and she came to pick Sassy up the next day. According to her new owner, Sassy is doing well and is using the litterbox as she should. I am using that tidbit as evidence that Sassy was totally miserable here and that we did the right thing. Which it was. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I get to sleep at night. When the children aren't crying. Or needing medicine. Or coughing...

Save me!!!

My Barfing Valentine

So, we are emerging from is pretty lousy week. On the upside, it went fast. On the downside...well, there were a lot of bodily fluids of a decided unpleasant variety all over the place.

Kaya got a nasty (I'd like to use the word "killer" but since we were verging on the literal sense of that it seems wrong) stomach virus. All I can say is....OY. It started last Thursday (or possibly even the week prior to that since she had been behaving not herself for almost a week before the bug hit), but when it hit, it was hard.

After she was no better in 36 hours, we went to the walk-in clinic where the doctor told us to stop all food and bottles and give her only Pedialyte for the next 24 hours, which we did and which seemed to work. Except when the 24 hours was upand I tried to feed her again (dry toast) we went right back to square one. Only by this time she was already quite low on fluids and it was almost impossible to get enough liquid into her to replace the vast amount she was losing.

The next morning, as had been our worry, we knew we had crossed the line from sick baby to dehydrated baby, so off to the emergency room we went. We got there and I was pretty happy because it was virtually empty and we were the only people in the pediatric room. But we waited and waited and waited. And people just kept coming until there must have been 100 people waiting. Finally, after almost 4 hours, Eric saw a girl he knew who happened to be working there. We chatted for a bit and then two minutes later she comes back out and escorts to the back. I'm pretty sure that if we never had that "in" we would still be waiting there. Anyway, they told us to give the Pedialyte by syringe every 15 minutes (which once the novelty wears off, is a huge pain. Anyway, it more or less did the trick. It still took almost two days to have a normal wet diaper.

Anyway, it's all good now. Kaya has bounced back 120 per cent. She seems even happier than she was before she got sick, if that is even possible. Today she was giggling at everything. However, we have taken it easy this week. I was so bored, I was actually thinking how nice it would be go to work where nobody ever asks to watch a Tonka DVD for the millionth time.

So, yeah, I know this was a boring blog, but that's all I have.

These Are the People in Your Neighbourhood

Seriously, my neighbours are nuts. How did we get so unlucky as to have people on both sides of us that we absolutely cannot stand?

Of course, the Oldies next door (who have not spoken a word to us in 2 years - well, except to tell Kieran to get out of their driveway) have been embroiled in a decades long war with the Trashies on the other side of us. I know this because prior to the Oldies ceasing to speak to us, the wife would corral me every chance she got to TELL me how much she hated the Trashies and all the horrible things he'd done (apparently he'd stalked the woman who lived in our house, he drove his kids to school drunk and other horrible things).

And Mr Trashy next door, who is also a yammerer, would tell me how the Oldies have a vendetta against him and would complain about every single thing...such as his young kids being "too loud" in the pool on a Saturday afternoon. His kids ARE loud in the pool but aren't ALL kids? It would never even cross my MIND to complain about kids having fun in their own yard during the daytime.

After living here three years I'm still not sure who to believe because they are both so unlikeable, but it's like living on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip. I'm half expecting grenades to lobbed over our flower garden.

Anyhow, yesterday, as usual I am going about my business inside our house when I hear a commotion from our sidewalk. I didn't pay much attention because I figured it was just kids but then one of Eric's clients left and when the door opened I could hear that it was adults screaming at each other. Turns out, it was the middle-aged daughter of the Oldies (who does not live there) and Mr Trashy. Trashy is holding a hockey stick in a threatening manner and Oldie-daughter is screaming that she's going to call the cops. This is all happening on our sidewalk.

Eric's poor client, who is a young high school girl just trying to get to her car is totally freaked out. And we notice for the first time that she has parked (100 per cent legally) in the forbidden spot right across from the Oldies driveway which is the reason they aren't talking to us in the first place. Well, sure enough, Oldie daughter, who again might I mention DOES NOT LIVE THERE, marches right up to the poor girl and tells her not to park there ever again, which I'm sure scared her even more.

Unfortunately, I don't actually know what the argument was about. We were heading out a few minutes later and Trashy was still outside and tried to engage us in a regular conversation about our Valentines Day plans and all I wanted to ask him was what the argument was about but I chickened out.

I'm sure it was something ridiculous, but I'm just thankful that the Oldies don't acknowledge our existence let alone scream at us. Yet.

Summer's coming!!!

Timbits

I just read that a 56 year old woman has become the first person to swim across the Atlantic Ocean. Jesus. I'm happy if I make it to the mall. In a car.

*****

If I continually weep at the Biggest Loser, does that, ironically, make me the Biggest Loser? Seriously, this show is now on Season 6 and why have I never even once watched it before? I love it. I love the fact that even though it's ostensibly a competition where you are voted out by your fellow competitors it's not that irritating Survivor-type where deserving people go home right off the bat. Or maybe I just like to watch really, really large people run. Makes me feel better about myself.

*****

We had a family outing today. To the pawn shop. It's a really dingy little place, where you walk in to this tiny, foul smelling room that is essentially a cage and which makes Kieran cry. The sales people stand behind the bars and show you stuff that is apparently soooo valuable it must be separated from the patrons by Leavenworth-grade steel bars. We were there because Eric, last summer, while playing stupid baseball, got hit in the hand with a ball and had to remove his wedding ring just before he watched his finger swell up to 5 times its normal size. He says he thought he put the ring in the van for safekeeping but when he went to look for it later it was nowhere to be found. (I know, I know, likely story). Anyway, I had thought about replacing the ring for Christmas but decided to get him a computer keyboard stand instead. So, since obviously both of us have romance coursing through our veins we decided that we would check out this old neighbourhood pawn shop to see if we could get someone ELSE's ring. But there was nothing. Fingers crossed that more marriages break up so we can snag ourselves a good deal on used rings with bad karma.

****

I don't know what is going on with that baby of ours. For the past few nights she has been waking up at about 10ish and then again at about 1230 and screaming her head off inconsolably. Nothing will calm her down (bottle, soother, rocking chair, reruns of Lost, nothing. ) Last night was so bad she wound up sleeping in our bed for the first time in about six months. I slept fine with her there but Eric worries all night that he is going to crush her under his Hulk-like muscles so we'll see how tonight goes. So far its not good, but I made sure to guzzle some red wine early so with any luck I'll be able to sleep through her cries.

****

While eating his soup today and spilling some down his chin, Kieran mention again the apparent fact that he has a beak. He corrected himself, but I think it was half-hearted. I'm pretty sure he thinks he's a bird. But, I hope it's a cool bird like an eagle or a concord and not something wussy like a cockatoo.

And I Quote...

Kieran was jumping around between the ottomans and the couch and (predictably) ended up whacking his face off something.He comes over to me, weeping and rubbing his nose.

Kieran: Mommy, I hurt my beak.

Me: What? Your beak? Do you mean your nose?

Kieran: No, my beak.

Me: You don't have a beak.

Kieran: I don't? Oh.

Goodbye January. I will not miss you.

Maybe you have noticed from a total lack of blog updates that I have the January blahs. God, I'm tired of the stupid snow, the stupid cold and the stupid driving in the stupid cold and snow.

With my return to work looming ever closer on the horizon, I am starting to integrate the Papaya slowly into daycare. Every second week instead of Kieran going on Tuesday and Friday, they both go on Tuesday. Its nice to have one full day free of children, but on the other hand I still think its a waste of money to have her in daycare when I'm at home. I don't think I can stress enough that this child, who is almost 10 months old, is NO work. I swear, I could bring her to the office and plunk her beside my desk for 8 hours and she would be no trouble at all. Toss her a few Cheerios now and again and she's happy as a clam.

Kieran, also, is making great strides. He seems to be emerging from his terrible toddlerhood to becoming quite the little boy. I don't think I have blogged about it yet, but the child changes his own diapers. (Well, he changes from diapers to pull-ups and then stays in those all day...he can't actually get a diaper back on himself.) Sometimes he asks for help, but usually not. By extension, obviously, he should be toilet trained, but he has fluctuating interest in that department. And really, if you have a boy who changes himself, its almost like he IS potty trained.

His new found independence of course has a downside. Last week, he was changing his clothes 10 times a day. Every time I turned around, he was running off to his bedroom to find a new shirt or pants, strewing clothes all over his bedroom and filling his laundry basket to overflowing. This week, he has developed an irrational attachment to a Cars shirt my mom gave him and it took me two days to get it off him - including one night sleeping in it.

The biggest jump for Kieran though is that finally, FINALLY, I can take him shopping without it being a complete nightmare. From the day he was born Kieran has been terrible in stores. As an infant he could last 10 minutes before the uncontrollable wailing would start. I recall having a brief reprieve when he was around 8 months where he was relatively happy in his stroller but it was short-lived. Up until about 1 month ago he either wanted to walk (by which I mean run off to do his own thing) or be carried. He wouldn't sit in a stroller or a shopping cart and no amount of bribing, cajoling or tough love would make him do so. Now that the Papaya is big enough to sit in a shopping cart, he is happy to sit beside her. I swear its her Zen-like presence that settles him down. I may have to start referring to her as the Dalai Lama. (The Kaya Lam-a, perhaps?)

Speaking of children and shopping, I was trapped the other day at the grocery store, following the same shopping path as a father and his daughter. The little girl was somewhere between the ages of one and two. I first saw them in the bakery section and noticed him because he was holding out two loaves of bread and asking her which one she wanted. I thought it was a bid odd for a kid to have a bread brand preference but I came across them again a few aisles later and he was asking her to pick between two other items. She pointed at one and he put it in the cart, congratulating her on her great choice. Gag. Now, I'm all for empowering our kids, but really, Guy? How much power do want to your kid to have? Do you really want her feeling like the type of mustard you buy is her decision to make? And most of all, how much time do you have, because that is a painfully slow way to shop. I left him in the dust shortly after that but I presume he was going to be letting her pick all his groceries. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they are still there, standing in front of the peanut butter while she contemplates the virtues of crunch v. smooth. Then again, who am I to talk....my kid was wearing the same shirt he slept in.