Big D

Darcy's teacher called me aside yesterday after school. She was laughing as she told me that she had received a few papers yesterday that she wasn't sure who had handed them in. When she realized she didn't have a paper from Darcy she asked Darcy if they were hers. They were. Instead of writing her own name on the papers, she decided instead to use Nick's nickname for her, "Big D". So all the papers she handed in yesterday were from, "Big D" instead of Darcy. We even had one paper she brought home with, "Big D" written on it. Man, did I laugh hard about that. Every time I looked at her throughout the evening I cracked up again. What a funny little kid.


But there's a weird twist to the story. When I was in grade one, I did a similar thing (although not nearly as imaginative). I was frustrated that there was another Susan in the class, so I decided to change my name. So, without telling anyone I started filling out all my papers with my middle name, Elizabeth, instead of Susan H. I had just mastered the spelling of Elizabeth so I wanted to have a chance to try it out. How odd that we would both have done the same thing around the same time!

She did get a pretty good reaction from everybody about this, so I think we may have a hard time getting her to sign her name properly again! We told her she should use her correct name on all her papers but she really doesn't want to now. I told her she has to listen to what her teacher says. We'll see what happens today!

I Haven't Given Up

If anyone still reads this, you probably think I've given up on blogging. I haven't, really, I just find it hard to find the time to sit down and write something here. Wesley is just so active and busy that it's hard for me to sit still for more than 30 seconds at a time. Nick is playing with the kids right now so I'm going to try to write something quickly.

We are still adjusting to life in Ottawa. We are finding our way around, experiencing all the great things this city has to offer and meeting some great people. We have really lucked out again with some wonderful neighbours with great kids for our kids to play with.

We recently bought a membership to three museums, the Canada Agriculture Museum, the Canada Museum of Science and Technology, and the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. Our membership covers our admittance to all three museums for one year. That's a pretty sweet deal and we're going to use that a lot.

One thing that people have been asking me about a lot is my work. I have been offered a job with Christian Horizons, working with develomentally challenged children. I was hired for a new centre that was scheduled to open in August. Then September. Then October. It kept getting pushed back and at the same time I was having trouble lining up child care for the awkward hours they were offering me. I finally lined something up and then 10 minutes later the phone rang and it was Christian Horizons changing the contract they were offering me, so the child care plan I had finally worked out no longer worked. I was back to square one. Again.

We sat down and looked at the numbers of the number of hours I'd be working, the hassle and expense of finding child care, and the fact that we moved to Ottawa to get away from Nick's shift work so it didn't make sense for me to start shift work. So after all that, I've decided not to take the job. We do feel we need some extra income coming in so what I'm planning to do now is to care for 2-3 children in my home. I don't want to have a lot of children to care for, but having a couple of kids would be a bit of extra money, plus it would be good for Wesley to have some kids to play with.

I've already met with one potential family so things could develop quickly. I'll be glad to have the opportunity to stay at home with my kids and get to know some other kids as well. I'll be interested to see how this develops.

So that's our update for now. Hopefully it won't be another two months before I write again.